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KOREA, AND HER NEIGHBORS

KOREA

And Her Neighbors

A Narrative of Travel, with
an Account of the Recent
Vicissitudes and Present
Position of the Country

Isabella Bird Bishop, F.R.G.S.

Author of '•''Unbeaten Tracks in Jaf>an^^'' etc.

With a Preface by

Sir Walter C. HiUier, K.C.M.G.

Late British Consul-General for Korea

With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author,
and Maps, Appendixes and Index

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

M DCCC XCVIII

Copyright 1897

BY

Fleming H. Revell Company

Preface.

I have been honored by Mrs. Bishop with an invitation to
preface her book on Korea with a few introductory remarks.

Mrs Bishop is too well known as a traveler and a writer to
require any introduction to the reading public, but I am glad
to be afforded an opportunity of indorsing the conclusions she
has arrived at after a long and intimate study of a people whose
isolation during many centuries renders a description of their
character, institutions and peculiarities, especially interesting
at the present stage of their history.

Those who, like myself, have known Korea from its first
opening to foreign intercourse will thoroughly appreciate the
closeness of Mrs. Bishop's observation, the accuracy of her
facts, and the correctness of her inferences. The facilities en-
joyed by her have been exceptional. She has been honored
by the confidence and friendship of the King and the late
Queen in a degree that has never before been accorded to any
foreign traveler, and has had access to valuable sources of
information placed at her disposal by the foreign community
of Seoul, official, missionary, and mercantile; while her pres-
ence in the country during and subsequent to the war between
China and Japan, of which Korea was, in the first instance, the
stage, has furnished her the opportunity of recording with ac-
curacy and impartiality many details of an episode in far East-
ern history which have hitherto been clouded by misstatement
and exaggeration. The hardships and difficulties encountered
by Mrs. Bishop during her journeys into the interior of Korea
have been lightly touched upon by herself ; but those who know

2 Preface

how great they were, admire the courage, patience and endur-
ance that enabled her to overcome them.

It must be evident to all who know anything of Korea that
a condition of tutelage, in some form or another, is now abso-
lutely necessary to her existence as a nation. The nominal
independence won for her by the force of Japanese arms is a
privilege she is not fitted to enjoy while she continues to labor
under the burden of an administration that is hopelessly and
superlatively corrupt. The role of mentor and guide exercised
by China, with that lofty indifference to local interests that
characterizes her treatment of all her tributaries, was under-
taken by Japan after the expulsion of the Chinese armies from
Korea. The efforts of the Japanese to reform some of the
most glaring abuses, though somewhat roughly applied, were
undoubtedly earnest and genuine; but, as Mrs. Bishop has
shown, experience was wanting, and one of the Japanese
Agents did incalculable harm to his country's cause by falling a
victim to the spirit of intrigue which seems almost inseparable
from the diplomacy of Orientals. Force of circumstances com-
pelled Russia to take up the task begun by Japan, the King
having appealed in his desperation to the Russian Representa-
tive for rescue from a terrorism which might well have cowed
a stronger and a braver man. The most partial of critics will
admit that the powerful influence which the presence of the
King in the house of their Representative might have enabled
the Russian Government to exert has been exercised through
their Minister with almost disappointing moderation. Never-
theless, through the instrumentality of Mr. M'Leavy Brown,
LL.D,, head of the Korean Customs and Financial Adviser to
the Government, an Englishman whose great ability as an
organizer and administrator is recognized by all residents in
the farther East, the finances of the country have been placed
in a condition of equilibrium that has never before existed;
while numerous other reforms have been carried out by Mr.
Brown and others with the cordial support and co-operation
of the Russian Minister, irrespective of the nationality of the
agent employed.

Preface 3

Much, however, still remains to be done; and the only hope
of advance in the direction of progress— initiated, it is only fair
to remember, by Japan, and continued under Russian auspices
—is to maintain an iron grip, which the Russian Agents, so far,
have been more careful than their Japanese predecessors to
conceal beneath a velvet glove. The condition of Korean set-
tlers in Russian territory described by Mrs. Bishop shows how
capable these people are of improving their condition under
wise and paternal rule; and, setting all political considerations
aside, there can be no doubt that the prosperity of the people
and their general comfort and happiness would be immensely
advanced under an extension of this patronage by one or other
civilized Power. Without some form of patronage or control,
call it by what name we will, a lapse into the old groove of op-
pression, extortion, and its concomitant miseries, is inevitable.
Mrs. Bishop's remarks on missionary work in China and
Korea, based, as they are, on personal and sympathetic obser-
vation, will be found of great value to those who are anxious
to arrive at a correct appreciation of Christian enterprise in
these remote regions. Descriptions of missionaries and their
doings are too often marred by exaggerations of success on the
one hand, which are, perhaps, the natural outcome of enthusi-
asm, and harsh and frequently unjust criticisms on the other,
commonly indulged in by those who base their conclusions
upon observation of the most superficial kind. Speaking from
my own experience, I have no hesitation in saying that closer
inquiry would dispel many of the illusions about the futility of
missionary work that are, unfortunately, too common; and
that missionaries would, as a rule, welcome sympathetic in-
quiry into their methods of work, which most of them will
frankly admit to be capable of improvement. But, while court-
ing friendly criticism, they may reasonably object to be judged
by those who have never taken the trouble to study their sys-
tem, or to interest themselves in the objects they have in view.
In Mrs. Bishop they have an advocate whose testimony may
be commended to the attention of all who are disposed to re-
gard missionary labor as, at the best, useless or unnecessary.

4 Preface

In Korea, at all events, to go no farther, it is to missionaries
that we are assuredly indebted for almost all we know about
the country; it is they who have awakened in the people the
desire for material progress and enlightenment that has now
happily taken root, and it is to them that we may confidently
look for assistance in its farther development. The unacknowl-
edged, but none the less complete, religious toleration that
now exists throughout the country affords them facilities which
are being energetically used with great promise of future suc-
cess. I am tempted to call attention to another point m con-
nection with this much-abused class of workers that is, I think,
often lost sight of, namely, their utility as explorers and pio-
neers of commerce. They are always ready — at least such has
been my invariable experience — to place the stores of their
local knowledge at the disposal of any one, whether merchant,
sportsman, or traveler, who applies to them for information,
and to lend him cheerful assistance in the pursuit of his ob-
jects. I venture to think that much valuable information as to
channels for the development of trade could be obtained by
Chambers of Commerce if they were to address specific inqui-
ries to missionaries in remote regions. Manufacturers are more
indebted to missionaries than perhaps they realize for the intro-
duction of their goods and wares, and the creation of a demand
for them, in places to which such would never otherwise have
found their way.

It is fortunate that Mrs. Bishop's visit to Korea was so op-
portunely timed. At the present rate of progress much that
came under her observation will, before long, be "improved"
out of existence ; and though no one can regret the disappear-
ance of many institutions and customs that have nothing but
their antiquity to recommend them, she has done valuable serv-
ice in placing on record so graphic a description of experiences
that future travelers will probably look for in vain.

WALTER C. HILLIER.

October^ 1897.

Author's Prefatory Note.

My four visits to Korea, between January, 1894, and March, 1897,
formed part of a plan of study of the leading characteristics of the
Mongolian races. My first journey produced the impression that
Korea is the most uninteresting country I ever traveled in, but dur-
ing and since the war its political perturbations, rapid changes, and
possible destinies, have given me an intense interest in it_; while
Korean character and industry, as I saw both under Russian rule
in Siberia, have enlightened me as to the better possibilities which
may await the nation in the future. Korea takes a similarly strong
grip on all who reside in it sufficiently long to overcome the feeling
of distaste which at first it undoubtedly inspires.

It is a difficult country to write upon, from the lack of books of
reference by means of which one may investigate what one hopes
are facts, the two best books on the country having become obsolete
within the last few years in so far as its political condition and
social order are concerned. The traveler must laboriously disinter
each fact for himself, usually through the medium of an inter-
preter ; and as five or six versions of each are given by apparently
equally reliable authorities, frequently the "teachers" of the for-
eigners, the only course is to hazard a bold guess as to which of
them has the best chance of being accurate.

Accuracy has been my first aim, and my many foreign friends in
Korea know how industriously 1 have labored to attain it. It is by
these, who know the extreme dftficulty of the task, that I shall be
the most leniently criticised wherever, in spite of carefulness, I
have fallen into mistakes.

Circumstances prevented me from putting my traveling experi-
ences, as on former occasions, into letters. I took careful notes,
which were corrected from time to time by the more prolonged ob-
servations of residents, and as I became better acquainted with the
country ; but, with regard to my journey up the South Branch of
the Han, as I am the first traveler who has reported on the region, I
have to rely on my observation and inquiries alone, and there is
the same lack of recorded notes on most of the country on the
Upper Tai-dong. My notes furnish the travel chapters, as well as
those on Seoul, Manchuria, and Primorsk ; and the sketches in
contemporary Korean history are based partly on official docu-

Author's Prefatory Note

ments, and are partly derived from sources not usually accessible.

I owe very much to the kindly interest which my friends in Ko-
rea took in my work, and to the encouragement which they gave
me when I was disheartened by the diflaculties of the subject and
my own lack of skill. I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable
help given me by Sir Walter C. Hillier, K.C.M.G., H.B.M.'s Consul-
General in Korea, and Mr. J. M'Leavy Brown, LL.D., Chief Com-
missioner of Korean Customs; also the aid generously bestowed
by Mr. Waeber, the Russian Minister, and the Rev. G. Heber Jones,
the Rev. James Gale, and other missionaries. I am also greatly
indebted to a learned and careful volume on Korean Government, by
Mr. W. H. Wilkinson, H.B.M.'s Acting Vice-Consul at Chemulpo,
as well as to the Korean Repository 2lVl& the Seoul Independent, for in-
formation which has enabled me to correct some of my notes on
Korean customs.

Various repetitions occur, for the reason that it appears to me
impossible to give sufficient emphasis to certain facts without them;
and several descriptions are loaded with details, the result of an
attempt to fix on paper customs and ceremonies destined shortly to
disappear. The illustrations, with the exceptions of three, are re-
productions of my own photographs. The sketch map, in so far as
my first journey is concerned, is reduced from one kindly drawn
for me by Mr. Waeber. The transliteration of Chinese proper
names was kindly undertaken by a well-known Chinese scholar,
but unfortunately the actual Chinese characters were not in all
cases forthcoming. In justice to the kind friends who have so gen-
erously aided me, I am anxious to claim and accept the fullest
measure of personal responsibility for the opinions expressed,
which, whether right cr wrong, are wholly my own.

I am painfully conscious of the demerits of this work, but believ-
ing that, on the whole, it reflects fairly faithfully the regions of
which it treats, I venture to present it to the public; and to ask for
it the same kindly and lenient criticism with which my records of
travel in the East and elsewhere have hitherto been received, and
that it maybe accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution
to the sum of the knowledge of Korea and its people, and to de-
scribe things as I saw them, not only in the interior but in the
troubled political atmosphere of the capital.

ISABELLA L. BISHOP.
November^ iSg'j.

Contents

Chapter Page

Introductory Chapter 1 1

I. First Impressions of Korea 23

II. First Impressions of the Capital 35

III. The Kur-dong 49

IV. Seoul, the Korean Mecca 59

V. The Sailing of the Sampan 66

VI. On the River of Golden Sand 71

VII. Views Afloat 82

VIII. Natural Beauty — The Rapids 98

IX. Korean Marriage Customs 114

X. The Korean Pony — Korean Roads and Inns ... 121

XI. Diamond Mountain Monasteries 133*^

XII. Along the Coast 150

XIII. Impending War — Excitement at Chemulpo .... 177

XIV. Deported to Manchuria 185

XV. A Manchurian Deluge — A Passenger Cart — An

Accident 192

XVI. Mukden and its Missions 199

XVII. Chinese Troops on the March 206

XVIII. Nagasaki — Wladivostok 213

XIX. Korean Settlers in Siberia 223

XX. The Trans-Siberian Railroad 239

XXI. The King's Oath — An Audience 245

XXII. A Transition Stage 261

XXIII. The Assassination of the Queen 269

XXIV. Burial Customs 283

XXV. Song-do: A Royal City 292

XXVI, The Phyong-yang Battlefield 301

XXVII. Northward Ho ! 320

XXVIII. Over the An-kil Yung Pass 330

7

8 Contents

Chapter Page

XXIX. Social Position of Women 338

XXX. Exorcists and Dancing Women 344^^

XXXI. The Hair-cropping Edict 359

XXXII. The Reorganized Korean Government 371

XXXIII. Education and Foreign Trade 387

XXXIV. D^MONisM OR Shamanism 399*^

XXXV. Notes on D^monism Concluded 409*^

XXXVI. Seoul in 1897 427

XXXVII. Last Words on Korea 445

Appendixes 461

Appendix A. — Mission Statistics for Korea 1896.
Appendix B. — Direct Foreign Trade of Korea

1896-95.
Appendix C. — Return of Principal Articles of

Export for the years 1806-95.
Appendix D. — Population of Treaty Ports.
Appendix E. — Treaty between Japan and Russia,
with reply of h. e., the korean minister
FOR Foreign Affairs.
Index 475

List of Illustrations.

Page

Mrs. Bishop's Traveling Party Frontispiece

Harbor of Chemulpo Facing 30

Gate of Old Fusan _ 34

Japanese Military Cemetery, Chemulpo Facing 38

Turtle Stone 48

Gutter Shop, Seoul Facing 60

The Author's Sampan, Han River Facing 66

Korean Peasants at Dinner 81

A Korean Lady 120

The Diamond Mountains Facing 140

Tombstones of Abbots, Yu-Ch6m Sa Facing 146

Passenger Cart, Mukden 198

Temple of God of Literature, Mukden Faciitg 200

Gate of Victory, Mukden Facing 208

Chinese Soldiers Facing 210

Wladivostok Facing 214

Russian " Army," Krasnoye Celo Facing 232

Korean Settler's House 238

Korean Throne Facijig 248

Summer Pavilion, or " Hall of Congratulations ". . .Facing 254

Royal Library, Kyeng-Pok Palace Facing 256

9

lO List of Illustrations.

Page

Korean Gentleman in Court Dress 260

Place of the Queen's Cremation 268

Chil-Sung Mon, Seven Star Gate 300

Altar at Tomb of Kit-ze Facing 318

Russian Settler's House , Facing 320

Upper Tai-Dong Facing 324

Russian Officers, Hun-Chun Facing 330

South Gate Facing 412

Seoul and Palace Enclosure Facing 428

The King of Korea , Facing 430

Korean Cadet Corps and Russian Drill Instructors. T^izr/w^ 434

A Street in Seoul Facing 436

Korean Policemen, Old and New. „ 444

GENERAL MAP OF KOREA ANDNEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES^

Korea and Her Neighbors

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

IN the winter of 1894, when I was about to sail for Korea
(to which some people erroneously give the name of '* The
Korea"), many interested friends hazarded guesses at its po-
sition,—the Equator, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea
being among them, a hazy notion that it is in the Greek Arch-
ipelago cropping up frequently. It was curious that not one
of these educated, and, in some cases, intelligent people came
within 2,000 miles of its actual latitude and longitude !

In truth, there is something about this peninsula which has
repelled investigation, and until lately, when the establishment
of a monthly periodical, carefully edited. The Korean Reposi-
tory, has stimulated research, the one authority of which all
writers, with and without acknowledgment, have availed them-
selves, is the Introduction to Pere Ballet's Histoire de V
£glise de Koree, a valuable treatise, many parts of which,
however, are now obsolete.

If in this volume I present facts so elementary as to provoke
the scornful comment, '' Every schoolboy knows that," I ven-
ture to remind my critics that the larger number of possible
readers were educated when Korea was little more than ''a
geographical expression," and had not the advantages of the
modern schoolboy, whose '* up-to-date " geographical text-
books have been written since the treaties of 1883 opened the
Hermit Nation to the world ; and I will ask the minority to be

XI

12 Korea and Her Neighbors

patient with what may be to them '* twice-told tales " for the
sake of the majority, specially in this introduction, which is
intended to give something of lucidity to the chapters which
follow.

The first notice of Korea is by Khordadbeh, an Arab geog-
rapher of the ninth century, a.d., in his Book of Roads and
Provinces, quoted by Baron Richofen in his work on China,
p. 575. Legends of the aborginal inhabitants of the peninsula
are too mythical to be noticed here, but it is certain that it
was inhabited when Kit-ze or Ki-ja, who will be referred to
later, introduced the elements of Chinese civilization in the
twelfth century B.C. Naturally that conquest and subsequent
immigrations from Manchuria have left some traces on the
Koreans, but they are strikingly dissimilar from both their
nearest neighbors, the Chinese and the Japanese, and there
is a remarkable variety of physiognomy among them, all the
more noticeable because of the uniformity of costume. The
difficulty of identifying people which besets and worries the
stranger in Japan and China does not exist in Korea. It is
true that the obliquity of the Mongolian eye is always present,
as well as a trace of bronze in the skin, but the complexion
varies from a swarthy olive to a very light brunette.

There are straight and aquiline noses, as well as broad and
snub noses with distended nostrils; and though the hair is
dark, much of it is so distinctly a russet brown as to require
the frequent application of lampblack and oil to bring it to a
fashionable black, while in texture it varies from wiriness to
silkiness. Some men have full moustaches and large goatees,
on the faces of others a few carefully tended hairs, as in China,
do duty for both, while many have full, strong beards. The
mouth is either the wide, full-lipped, gaping cavity constantly
seen among the lower orders, or a small though full feature, or
thin-lipped and refined, as is seen continually among patricians.

The eyes, though dark, vary from dark brown to hazel ; the
cheek bones are high ; the brow, so far as fashion allows it to

Introductory Chapter

13

be seen, is frequently lofty and intellectual ; and the ears are
small and well set on. The usual expression is cheerful, with
a dash of puzzlement. The physiognomy indicates, in its
best aspect, quick intelligence, rather than force or strength
of will. The Koreans are certainly a handsome race.

The physique is good. The average height of the men is
five feet four and a half ^ inches, that of the women cannot be
ascertained, and is ^/^proportionately less, while their figure-
less figures, the faults of which are exaggerated by the ugliest
dress on earth, are squat and broad. The hands and feet of
both sexes and all classes are very small, white, and exquisitely
formed, and the tapering, almond-shaped finger-nails are care-
fully attended to. The men are very strong, and as porters
carry heavy weights, a load of 100 pounds being regarded as
a moderate one. They walk remarkably well, whether it be the
studied swing of the patrician or the short, firm stride of the
plebeian when on business. The families are large and healthy.
If the Government estimate of the number of houses is correct,
the population, taking a fair average, is from twelve to thirteen
millions, females being in the minority.

Mentally the Koreans are liberally endowed, specially with
that gift known in Scotland as " gleg at the uptak." The for-
eign teachers bear willing testimony to their mental adroitness
and quickness of perception, and their talent for the rapid ac-
quisition of languages, which they speak more fluently and
with a far better accent than either the Chinese or Japanese.
They have the Oriental vices of suspicion, cunning, and un-

»The following are the measurements of 1,060 men taken at Seoul in
January, 1897, by Mr. A. B. Stripling:—

Highest.

Lowest.

Average.

Height .

Size round chest

head .

5 ft. iiX in.
39'A i"-
23X "

4 ft. 9K in.
27 in.
20 "

5 ft. 4K in-
31 in.

21/2 "

14 Korea and Her Neighbors

truthfulness, and trust between man and man is unknown.
Women are secluded, and occupy a very inferior position.

The geography of Korea, or Ch'ao Hsien (''Morning
Calm," or ''Fresh Morning"), is simple. It is a definite
peninsula to the northeast of China, measuring roughly 600
miles from north to south and 135 from east to west. The
coast line is about 1,740 miles. It lies between 34° 17' N. to
43° N. latitude and 124° 38' E. to 130° 2>?>' E. longitude, and
has an estimated area of upwards of 80,000 square miles, be-
ing somewhat smaller than Great Britain. Bounded on the
north and west by the Tu-men and Am-nok, or Yalu, rivers,
which divide it from the Russian and Chinese empires, and by
the Yellow Sea, its eastern and southern limit is the Sea of
Japan, a "silver streak," which has not been its salvation.
Its northern frontier is only conterminous with that of Russia
for II miles.

Both boundary rivers rise in Paik-tu San, the "White-
Headed Mountain," from which runs southwards a great
mountain range, throwing off numerous lateral spurs, itself a
rugged spine which divides the kingdom into two parts, the
eastern division being a comparatively narrow strip between
the range and the Sea of Japan, difficult of access, but ex-
tremely fertile ; while the western section is composed of rug-
ged hills and innumerable rich valleys and slopes, well watered
and admirably suited for agriculture. Craters of volcanoes,
long since passed into repose, lava beds, and other signs of
volcanic action, are constantly met with.

The lakes are few and very small, and not many of the
streams are navigable for more than a few miles from the sea,
the exceptions being the noble Am-nok, the Tai-dong, the
Nak-tong, the Mok-po, and the Han, which last, rising in
Kang-w5n Do, 30 miles from the Sea of Japan, after cutting
the country nearly in half, falls into the sea at Chemulpo on
the west coast, and, in spite of many and dangerous rapids, is
a valuable highway for commerce for over 1 70 miles.

Introductory Chapter 15

Owing to the configuration of the peninsula there are few-
good harbors, but those which exist are open all the winter.
The finest are Fusan and Won-san, on Broughton Bay. Che-
mulpo, which, as the port of Seoul, takes the first place, can
hardly be called a harbor at all, the ** outer harbor," where
large vessels and ships of war lie, being nothing better than a
roadstead, and the "inner harbor," close to the town, in the
fierce tideway of the estuary of the Han, is only available for
five or six vessels of small tonnage at a time. The east coast
is steep and rocky, the water is deep, and the tide rises and
falls from i to 2 feet only. On the southwest and west coasts
the tid-e rises and falls from 26 to 38 feet !

Off the latter coasts there is a remarkable archipelago. Some
of the islands are bold masses of arid rock, the resort of sea-
fowl ; others are arable and inhabited, while the actual coast
fringes off into innumerable islets, some of which are im-
mersed by the spring tides. In the channels scoured among
these by the tremendous rush of the tide, navigation is oft-
times dangerous. Great mud-banks, specially near the mouths
of the rivers, render parts of the coastline dubious.

Korea is decidedly a mountainous country, and has few
plains deserving the name. In the north there are mountain
groups with definite centres, the most remarkable being Paik-tu
San, which attains an altitude of over 8,000 feet, and is re-
garded as sacred. Farther south these settle into a definite
range, following the coast-line at a moderate distance, and
throwing out so many ranges and spurs to the west as to break
up northern and central Korea into a congeries of corrugated
and precipitous hills, either denuded or covered with chap-
paral, and narrow, steep-sided valleys, each furnished with a
stony stream. The great axial range, which includes the
*' Diamond Mountain," a region containing exquisite moun-
tain and sylvan scenery, falls away as it descends towards the
southern coast, disintegrating in places into small and often
infertile plains.

l6 Korea and Her Neighbors

The geological formation is fairly simple. Mesozoic rocks
occur in Hwang-hai Do, but granite and metamorphic rocks
largely predominate. Northeast of Seoul are great fields of
lava, and lava and volcanic rocks are of common occurrence
in the north.

The climate is undoubtedly one of the finest and healthiest
in the world. Foreigners are not afflicted by any climatic
maladies, and European children can be safely brought up in
every part of the peninsula. July, August, and sometimes the
first half of September, are hot and rainy, but the heat is so
tempered by sea breezes that exercise is always possible. For
nine months of the year the skies are generally bright, and a
Korean winter is absolutely superb, with its still atmosphere,
its bright, blue, unclouded sky, its extreme dryness without
asperity, and its crisp, frosty nights. From the middle of
September till the end of June, there are neither extremes of
heat nor cold to guard against.

The summer mean temperature at Seoul is about 75° Fah-
renheit, that of the winter about 33°; the average rainfall
36.03 inches in the year, and the average of the rainy season
21.86 inches.^ July is the wettest month, and December the
driest. The result of the abundant rainfall, distributed fairly
through the necessitous months of the year, is that irrigation
is necessary only for the rice crop.

The fauna of Korea is considerable, and includes tigers and
leopards in great numbers, bears, antelopes, at least seven
species of deer, foxes, beavers, otters, badgers, tiger-cats, pigs,
several species of marten, a sable (not of much value, how-
ever), and striped squirrels. Among birds there are black
eagles, found even near Seoul, harriers, peregrines (largely
used for hawking), pheasants, swans, geese, spectacled and
common teal, mallards, mandarin ducks, turkey buzzards (very
shy), white and pink ibis, sparrow-hawks, kestrels, imperial

' These averages are only calculated on observations taken during a
period of three and a half years.

Introductory Chapter 17

cranes, egrets, herons, curlews, night-jars, redshanks, bunt-
ings, magpies (common and blue), orioles, wood larks,
thrushes, redstarts, crows, pigeons, doves, rooks, warblers,
wagtails, cuckoos, halcyon and bright blue kingfishers, jays,
snipes, nut-hatches, gray shrikes, pheasants, hawks, and kites.
But until more careful observations have been made it is im-
possible to say which of the smaller birds actually breed in
Korea, and which make it only a halting-place in their annual
migrations.

The denudation of the hills in the neighborhood of Seoul,
the coasts, the treaty ports, and the main roads, is impressive,
and helps to give a very unfavorable idea of the country. It
is to the dead alone that the preservation of anything deserv-
ing the name of timber in much of southern Korea is owing.
But in the mountains. of the northern and eastern provinces,
and specially among those which enclose the sources of the
Tu-men, the Am-nok, the Tai-dong, and the Han, there are
very considerable forests, on which up to this time the wood-
cutter has made little apparent impression, though a good deal
of timber is annually rafted down these rivers.

Among the indigenous trees are the Abies excelsa, Abies
microsperma, Pinus sinensis y Finns pinea, three species of
oak, the lime, ash, birch, five species of maple, the Acantho-
panax ricini folia, Rhus seniipififiata, ElcBagmis, juniper,
mountain ash, hazel, Thuja Orientalis (?), willow, Sophora
Japonica (?), hornbeam, plum, peach, Euonymus alatus, etc.
The flora is extensive and interesting, but, with the exception
of the azalea and rhododendron, it lacks brilliancy of color.
There are several varieties of showy clematis, and the 7niile-
fleur rose smothers even large trees, but the climber par ex-
cellence of Korea is the Ampelopsis Veifchi. The economic
plants are few, and, with the exception of i\\t Panax quinque-
folia (ginseng), the wild roots of which are worth ^15 per
ounce, are of no commercial value.

The mineral wealth of Korea is a vexed question. Probably

i8 Korea and Her Neighbors

between the view of the country as an El Dorado and the scep-
ticism as to the existence of underground treasure at all, the
mean lies. Gold is little used for personal ornaments or in the
arts, yet the Korean declares that the dust of his country is
gold ; and the unquestionable authority of a Customs' report
states that gold dust to the amount of ^1,360,279 was exported
in 1896, and that it is probable that the quantity which left
the country undeclared was at least as much again. Silver and
galena are found, copper is fairly plentiful, and the country is
rich in undeveloped iron and coal mines, the coal being of
excellent quality. The gold-bearing quartz has never been
touched, but an American Company, having obtained a con-
cession, has introduced machinery, and has gone to work in
the province of Phyong-an.

The manufactures are unimportant. The best productions
are paper of several qualities made from the Bronsonettia
Fapyrifera, among which is an oiled paper, like vellum in
appearance, and so tough that a man can be raised from the
ground on a sheet of it, lifted at the four corners, fine grass
mats, and split bamboo blinds.

The arts are nil.

Korea, or Ch'ao Hsien, has been ruled by kings of the pres-
ent dynasty since 1392. The monarchy is hereditary, and
though some modifications in a constitutional direction were
made during the recent period of Japanese ascendency, the
sovereign is still practically absolute, his edicts, as in China,
constituting law. The suzerainty of China, recognized since
very remote days, was personally renounced by the king at the
altar of the Spirits of the Land in January, 1895, and the com-
plete independence of Korea was acknowledged by China in
the treaty of peace signed at Shimonoseki in May of the same
year. There is a Council of State composed of a chancellor,
five councillors, six ministers, and a chief secretary. The de-
cree of September, 1896, which constitutes this body, an-
nounces the king's absolutism in plain terms in the preamble.

Introductory Chapter 19

There are nine ministers — the Prime Minister, Minister of the
Royal Household, of Finance, of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs,
War, Justice, Agriculture, and Education, but the royal will
(or whim) overrides their individual or collective decisions.

The Korean army consists of 4,800 men in Seoul, drilled by
Russians, and 1,200 in the provinces; the navy, of two small
merchant steamers.

Korea is divided into 13 provinces and 360 magisterial
districts.

The revenue, which is amply sufficient for all legitimate ex-
penses, is derived from Customs' duties, under the able and
honest management of officers lent by the Chinese Imperial
Maritime Customs : a land tax of ^6 on every fertile kyel (a
fertile kyel being estimated at about dyi acres), and ^5 on
every mountain kyel ; a household tax of 60 cents per house,
houses in the capital enjoying immunity; and a heavy excise
duty of $16 per cattie on manufactured ginseng.

Up to 1876 Korea successfully preserved her isolation, and
repelled with violence any attempt to encroach upon it. In
that year Japan forced a treaty upon her, and in 1882 China fol-
lowed with ''Trade and Frontier Regulations." The United
States negotiated a treaty in 1882, Great Britain and Germany
in 1884, Russia and Italy in 1886, and Austria in 1892, in all
which, though under Chinese suzerainty, Korea was treated
with as an independent state. By these treaties, Seoul and
the ports of Chemulpo (Jenchuan), Fusan, and Won-san (Gen-
san) were opened to foreign commerce, and this year (1897)
Mok-po and Chinnam-po have been added to the list.

After the treaties were signed, a swarm of foreign represent-
atives settled down upon the capital, where three of them are
housed in handsome and conspicuous foreign buildings. The
British Minister at Peking is accredited also to the Korean
Court, and Britain has a resident Consul-General. Japan,
Russia, and America are represented by Ministers, France by
a Charge d' Affaires, and Germany by a Consul. China, which

20 Korea and Her Neighbors

has been tardy in entering upon diplomatic relations with Korea
since the war, placed her subjects under the protection of the
British Consul-General.

Until recently, the coinage of Korea consisted of debased
copper cash, 500 to the dollar, a great check on business trans-
actions ; but a new fractional coinage, of which the unit is a
20-cent piece, has been put into circulation, along with 5 -cent
nickel, ^-cash copper, and \-cash brass pieces. The fine Jap-
anese yen or dollar is now current everywhere. The Dai Ichi
Gingo and Fifty-eighth Banks of Japan afford banking facili-
ties in Seoul and the open ports.

In the treaty ports of Fusan, Won-san, and Chemulpo, there
were in January, 1897, 11,318 foreign residents and 266 for-
eign business firms. The Japanese residents numbered 10,711,
and their firms 230. The great majority of the American and
French residents are missionaries, and the most conspicuous
objects in Seoul are the Roman Cathedral and the American
Methodist Episcopal Church. The number of British subjects
in Korea in January, 1897, was 65, and an agency of a British
firm in Nagasaki has recently been opened at Chemulpo. The
approximate number of Chinese in Korea at the same time was
2,500, divided chiefly between Seoul and Chemulpo. There
is a newly-instituted postal system for the interior, with post-
age stamps of four denominations, and a telegraph system,
Seoul being now in communication with all parts of the world.

The roads are infamous, and even the main roads are rarely
more than rough bridle tracks. Goods are carried everywhere
on the backs of men, bulls, and ponies, but a railroad from
Chemulpo to Seoul, constructed by an American concession-
aire, is actually to be opened shortly.

The language of Korea is mixed. The educated classes in-
troduce Chinese as much as possible into their conversation,
and all the literature of any account is in that language, but it is
of an archaic form, the Chinese of 1,000 years ago, and differs
completely in pronunciation from Chinese as now spoken in

Introductory Chapter 21

China. En-mtm, the Korean script, is utterly despised by the
educated, whose sole education is in the Chinese classics.
Korean has the distinction of being the only language of East-
ern Asia which possesses an alphabet. Only women, children,
and the uneducated used the En-mun till January, 1895, when
a new departure was made by the official Gazette, which for
several hundred years had been written in Chinese, appearing
in a mixture of Chinese characters and En-mun, a resemblance
to the Japanese mode of writing, in which the Chinese charac-
ters which play the chief part are connected by katia syllables.

A further innovation was that the King's oath of Independ-
ence and Reform was promulgated in Chinese, pure En-7nun,
and the mixed script, and now the latter is regularly employed
as the language of ordinances, official documents, and the
Gazette ; royal rescripts, as a rule, and despatches to the for-
eign representatives still adhering to the old form.

This recognition of the Korean language by means of the
official use of the mixed, and in some cases of the pure script,
the abolition of the Chinese literary examinations as the test
of the fitness of candidates for office, the use of the " vulgar "
script exclusively in the Lidependent, the new Korean news-
paper, the prominence given to Korean by the large body of
foreign missionaries, and the slow creation of scientific text-
books and a literature in En-mun, are tending not only to
strengthen Korean national feeling, but to bring the *' masses,"
who can mostly read their own script, into contact with West-
ern science and forms of thought.

There is no national religion. Confucianism is the official
cult, and the teachings of Confucius are the rule of Korean
morality. Buddhism, once powerful, but " disestablished "
three centuries ago, is to be met with chiefly in mountainous
districts, and far from the main roads. Spirit worship, a
species of shamanism, prevails all over the kingdom, and
holds the uneducated masses and the women of all classes in
complete bondage.

22 Korea and Her Neighbors

Christian missions, chiefly carried on by Americans, are be-
ginning to produce both direct and indirect effects.

Ten years before the opening ^ of Korea to foreigners, the
Korean king, in writing to his suzerain, the Emperor of China,
said, " The educated men observe and practice the teachings
of Confucius and Wen Wang," and this fact is the key to any-
thing like a correct estimate of Korea. Chinese influence in
government, law, education, etiquette, social relations, and
morals is predominant. In all these respects Korea is but a
feeble reflection of her powerful neighbor ; and though since
the war the Koreans have ceased to look to China for assist-
ance, their sympathies are with her, and they turn to her for
noble ideals, cherished traditions, and moral teachings.
Their literature, superstitions, system of education, ancestral
worship, culture, and modes of thinking are Chinese. Society
is organized on Confucian models, and the rights of parents
over children, and of elder over younger brothers, are as fully
recognized as in China.

It is into this archaic condition of things, this unspeakable
grooviness, this irredeemable, unreformed Orientalism, this
parody of China without the robustness of race which helps to
hold China together, that the ferment of the Western leaven
has fallen, and this feeblest of independent kingdoms, rudely
shaken out of her sleep of centuries, half frightened and
wholly dazed, finds herself confronted with an array of power-
ful, ambitious, aggressive, and not always overscrupulous
powers, bent, it may be, on overreaching her and each other,
forcing her into new paths, ringing with rude hands the knell
of time-honored custom, clamoring for concessions, and be-
wildering her with reforms, suggestions, and panaceas, of
which she sees neither the meaning nor the necessity.

And so '* The old order changeth, giving place to new,"
and many indications of the transition will be found in the
later of the following pages.

1 See appendix A.

CHAPTER I

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KOREA

IT is but fifteen hours' steaming from the harbor of Nagasaki
to Fusan in Southern Korea. The Island of Tsushima,
where the Higo Maru calls, was, however, my last glimpse of
Japan ; and its reddening maples and blossoming plums, its
temple-crowned heights, its stately flights of stone stairs lead-
ing to Shinto shrines in the woods, the blue-green masses of its
pines, and the golden plumage of its bamboos, emphasized the
effect produced by the brown, bare hills of Fusan, pleasant
enough in summer, but grim and forbidding on a sunless Feb-
ruary day. The Island of the Interrupted Shadow, Chol-
yong-To, (Deer Island), high and grassy, on which the Jap-
anese have established a coaling station and a quarantine hos-
pital, shelters Fusan harbor.

It is not Korea but Japan which meets one on anchoring.
The lighters are Japanese. An official of the Nippon Yusen
Kaisha (Japan Mail Steamship Co.), to which the Higo Maru
belongs, comes off with orders. The tide-waiter, however, is
English — one of the English employes of the Chinese Imperial
Maritime Customs, lent to Korea, greatly to her advantage, for
the management of her customs' revenue. The foreign settle-
ment of Fusan is dominated by a steep bluff with a Buddhist
temple on the top, concealed by a number of fine cryptomeria,
planted during the Japanese occupation in 1592. It is a
fairly good-looking Japanese town, somewhat packed between
the hills and the sea, with wide streets of Japanese shops and
various Anglo-Japanese buildings, among which the Consulate
and a Bank are the most important. It has substantial retain-

23

24 Korea and Her Neighbors

ing and sea walls, and draining, lighting, and roadmaking
have been carried out at the expense of the municipality.
Since the war, waterworks have been constructed by a rate of
loo cash levied on each house, and it is hoped that the present
abundant supply of pure water will make an end of the fre-
quent epidemics of cholera. Above the town, the new Jap-
anese military cemetery, filling rapidly, is the prominent
object.

Considering that the creation of a demand for foreign goods
is not thirteen years old, it is amazing to find how the Koreans
have taken to them, and that the foreign trade of Fusan has
developed so rapidly that, while in 1885 the value of exports
and imports combined only amounted to ;£7 7,850, in 1892 it
had reached ^^346, 608. Unbleached shirtings, lawns, mus-
lins, cambrics, and Turkey reds for children's wear have all
captivated Korean fancy; but the conservatism of wadded cot-
ton garments in winter does not yield to foreign woollens, of
which the importation is literally nil. The most amazing
stride is in the importation of American kerosene oil,
which has reached 71,000 gallons in a quarter ; and which,
by displacing the fish-oil lamp and the dismal rushlight in
the paper lantern, is revolutionizing evening life in Korea.
Matches, too, have *' caught on" wonderfully, and evidently
have *'come to stay." Hides, beans, dried fish, beche de
mevy rice, and whale's flesh are among the principal ex-
ports. It was not till 1883 that Fusan was officially opened to
general foreign trade, and its rise has been most remarkable.
In that year its foreign population was 1,500; in 1897 it was

5.564-

In the first half of 1885 the Japan Mail Steamship Co. ran
only one steamer, calling at Fusan, to Wladivostok every five
weeks, and a small boat to Chemulpo, calling at Fusan, once a
month. Now not a day passes without steamers, large or
small, arriving at the port, and in addition to the fine vessels
of the Nippon Ytisen Kaisha, running frequently between

First Impressions of Korea 25

Kobe and Wladivostok, Shanghai and Wladivostok, Kobe and
Tientsin, and between Kobe Chefoo, and Newchang, all call-
ing at Fusan, three other lines, including one from Osaka di-
rect, and a Russian mail line running between Shanghai and
Wladivostok, make Fusan a port of call.

It appears that about one-third of the goods imported is car-
ried inland on the backs of men and horses. The taxes levied
and the delays at the barriers on both the overland and river
routes are intolerable to traders, a hateful custom prevailing
under which each station is controlled by some petty official,
who, for a certain sum paid to the Government in Seoul, ob-
tains permission to levy taxes on all goods. ^ The Nak-Tong
River, the mouth of which is 7 miles from Fusan, is navigable
for steamers drawing 5 feet of water as far as Miriang, 50 miles
up, and for junks drawing 4 feet as far as Sa-mun, 100 miles
farther, from which point their cargoes, transhipped into light
draught boats, can ascend to Sang-chin, 170 miles from the
coast. With this available waterway, and a hazy prospect that
the much disputed Seoul-Fusan railway may become an accom-
plished fact, Fusan bids fair to become an important centre of
commerce, as the Kyong-sang Province, said to be the most
populous of the eight (now for administrative purposes thirteen),
is also said to be the most prosperous and fruitful, with the
possible exception of Chul-la.

Barren as the neighboring hills look, they are probably rich
in minerals. Gold is found in several places within a radius
of 50 miles, copper quite near, and there are coal fields within
100 miles.

To all intents and purposes the settlement of Fusan is Jap-
anese. In addition to the Japanese population of 5,508, there

1 According to Mr. Hunt, the Commissioner of Customs at Fusan, in
the Kyong-sang province alone there are 17 such stations. Fusan is
hedged round by a cordon of them within a ten-mile radius, and on the
Nak-tong, which is the waterway to the provincial capital, there are four
in a distance of 25 miles.

26 Korea and Her Neighbors

is a floating population of 8,000 Japanese fishermen. A
Japanese Consul-General lives in a fine European house. Bank-
ing facilities are furnished by the Dai Ichi Gingo of Tokio,
and the post and telegraph services are also Japanese. Japa-
nese too is the cleanliness of the settlement, and the introduc-
tion of industries unknown to Korea, such as rice husking and
cleaning by machinery, whale-fishing, sake-making, and the
preparation of shark's fins, deche de mer, and fish manure, the
latter an unsavory fertilizer, of which enormous quantities are
exported to Japan.

But the reader asks impatiently, ''Where are the Koreans?
I don't want to read about the Japanese ! " Nor do I want to
write about them, but facts are stubborn, and they are the out-
standing Fusan fact.

As seen from the deck of the steamer, a narrow up and down
path keeping at some height above the sea skirts the hillside
for 3 miles from Fusan, passing by a small Chinese settlement
with official buildings, uninhabited when I last saw them, and
terminating in the walled town of Fusan proper, with a fort of
very great antiquity outside it, modernized by the Japanese
after the engineering notions of three centuries ago.

Seated on the rocks along the shore were white objects re-
sembling pelicans or penguins, but as white objects with the
gait of men moved in endless procession to and fro between
old and new Fusan, I assumed that the seated objects were of
the same species. The Korean makes upon one the impres-
sion of novelty, and while resembling neither the Chinese nor
the Japanese, he is much better-looking than either, and his phy-
sique is far finer than that of the latter. Though his average
height is only 5 feet 4^ inches, his white dress, which is vo-
luminous, makes him look taller, and his high-crowned hat,
without which he is never seen, taller still. The men were in
winter dress — white cotton sleeved robes, huge trousers, and
socks; all wadded. On their heads were black silk wadded
caps with pendant sides edged with black fur, and on the top

First Impressions of Korea 27

of these, rather high-crowned, somewhat broad-brimmed hats
of black ''crinoUne" or horsehair gauze, tied under the chin
with crinoline ribbon. The general effect was grotesque.
There were a few children on the path, bundles of gay cloth-
ing, but no women.

I was accompanied to old Fusan by a charming English
«*Una," who, speaking Korean almost like a native, moved
serenely through the market-day crowds, welcomed by all. A
miserable place I thought it, and later experience showed that
it was neither more nor less miserable than the general run of
Korean towns. Its narrow dirty streets consist of low hovels
built of mud-smeared wattle without windows, straw roofs, and
deep eaves, a black smoke hole in every wall 2 feet from the
ground, and outside most are irregular ditches containing solid
and liquid refuse. Mangy dogs and blear-eyed children, half
or wholly naked, and scaly with dirt, roll in the deep dust or
slime, or pant and blink in the sun, apparently unaffected by
the stenches which abound. But market day hid much that is
repulsive. Along the whole length of the narrow, dusty,
crooked street, the wares were laid out on mats on the ground,
a man or an old woman, bundled up in dirty white cotton,
guarding each. And the sound of bargaining rose high, and
much breath was spent on beating down prices, which did not
amount originally to the tenth part of a farthing. The goods
gave an impression of poor buyers and small trade. Short
lengths of coarse white cotton, skeins of cotton, straw shoes,
wooden combs, tobacco pipes and pouches, dried fish and sea-
weed, cord for girdles, paper rough and smooth, and barley-
sugar nearly black, were the contents of the mats. I am sure
that the most valuable stock-in-trade there was not worth more
than three dollars. Each vendor had a small heap of cash
beside him, an uncouth bronze coin with a square hole in the
centre, of which at that time 3,200 iwviinally went to the
dollar, and which greatly trammelled and crippled Korean
trade.

28 Korea and Her Neighbors

A market is held in Fusan and in many other places every
fifth day. On these the country people rely for all which they
do not produce, as well as for the sale or barter of their pro-
ductions. Practically there are no shops in the villages and
small towns, their needs being supplied on stated days by
travelling pedlars who form a very influential guild.

Turning away from the bustle of the main street into a nar-
row, dirty alley, and then into a native compound, I found the
three Australian ladies who were the objects of my visit to this
decayed and miserable town. Except that the compound was
clean, it was in no way distinguishable from any other, being
surrounded by mud hovels. In one of these, exposed to the
full force of the southern sun, these ladies were living. The
mud walls were concealed with paper, and photographs and
other European knickknacks conferred a look of refinement.
But not only were the rooms so low that one of the ladies
could not stand upright in them, but privacy was impossible,
invasions of Korean women and children succeeding each
other from morning to night, so that even dressing was a
spectacle for the curious. Friends urged these ladies not to
take this step of living in a Korean town 3 miles from Euro-
peans. It was represented that it was not safe, and that their
health would suffer from the heat and fetid odors of the
crowded neighborhood, etc. In truth it was not a ** conven-
tional thing " to do.

On my first visit I found them well and happy. Small chil-
dren were clinging to their skirts, and a certain number of
women had been induced to become cleanly in their persons
and habits. All the neighbors were friendly, and rude re-
marks in the streets had altogether ceased. Many of the
women resorted to them for medical help, and the simple aid
they gave brought them much good-will. This friendly and
civilizing influence was the result of a year of living under
very detestable circumstances. If they had dwelt in grand
houses 2^ miles off upon the hill, it is safe to say that the re-

First Impressions of Korea 29

suit would have been ;///. Without any fuss or blowing of
trumpets, they quietly helped to solve one of the great prob-
lems as to " Missionary Methods," though why it should be a
*' problem " I fail to see. In the East at least, every religious
teacher who has led the people has lived among them, know-
ing if not sharing their daily lives, and has been easily acces-
sible at all times. It is not easy to imagine a Buddha or One
greater than Buddha only reached by favor of, and possibly by
feeing, a gate-keeper or servant.

On visiting them a year later I found them still well and
happy. The excitement among the Koreans consequent on
the Tong-hak rebellion and the war had left them unmolested.
A Japanese regiment had encamped close to them, and, by
permission, had drawn water from the well in their compound,
and had shown them nothing but courtesy. Having in two
years gained general confidence and good-will, they built
a small bungalow just above the old native house, which has
been turned into a very primitive orphanage.

The people were friendly and kind from the first. Those
who were the earliest friends of the ladies are their staunchest
friends now, and they knew them and their aims so well when
they moved into their new house that it made no difference at
all. Some go there to see the ladies, others to see the furni-
ture or hear the organ, and a few to inquire about the '* Jesus
doctrine." The "mission work" now consists of daily meet-
ings for worship, classes for applicants for baptism, classes at
night for those women who may not come out in the daytime,
a Sunday school with an attendance of eighty, visiting among
the people, and giving instruction in the country and surround-
ing villages. About forty adults have professed Christianity,
and regularly attend Christian worship.

I mention these facts not for the purpose of glorifying these
ladies, who are simply doing their duty, but because they
fall in with a theory of my own as to methods of mission
work.

3© Korea and Her Neighbors

There is a very small Roman Catholic mission-house, seldom
tenanted, between the two Fusans. In the province of Kyong-
sang in which they are, there are Roman missions which claim
2,000 converts, and to promulgate Christianity in thirty towns
and villages. There are two foreign priests, who spend most
of the year in teaching in the provincial villages, living in
Korean huts, in Korean fashion, on Korean food.

A coarse ocean with a distinct line of demarcation between
the blue water of the Sea of Japan and the discoloration of the
Yellow Sea, harsh, grim, rocky, brown islands, mostly unin-
habited— two monotonously disagreeable days, more islands,
muddier water, an estuary and junks, and on the third after-
noon from Fusan the Higo Maru anchored in the roadstead
of Chemulpo, the seaport of Seoul. This cannot pretend to
be a harbor, indeed most of the roadstead, such as it is, is a
slimy mud flat for much of the day, the tide rising and falling
36 feet. The anchorage, a narrow channel in the shallows, can
accommodate five vessels of moderate size. Yet though the
mud was eji evidence^ and the low hill behind the town was
dull brown, and a drizzling rain was falling, I liked the look of
Chemulpo better than I expected, and after becoming ac-
quainted with it in various seasons and circumstances, I came
to regard it with very friendly feelings. As seen from the
roadstead, it is a collection of mean houses, mostly of wood,
painted white, built along the edge of the sea and straggling
up a verdureless hill, the whole extending for more than a
mile from a low point on which are a few trees, crowned by
the English Vice-Consulate, a comfortless and unworthy build-
ing, to a hill on which are a large decorative Japanese tea-
house, a garden, and a Shinto shrine. Salient features there
are none, unless the house of a German merchant, an English
church, the humble buildings of Bishop Corfe's mission on the
hill, the large Japanese Consulate, and some new municipal
buildings on a slope, may be considered such. As at Fusan,
an English tide-waiter boarded the ship, and a foreign harbor-

First Impressions of Korea 31

master berthed her, while a Japanese clerk gave the captain
his orders.

Mr. Wilkinson, the acting British Vice-Consul, came off for
me, and entertained me then and on two subsequent occasions
with great hospitality, but as the Vice-Consailate had at that
time no guest-room, I slept at a Chinese inn, known as
** Steward's," kept by Itai, an honest and helpful man who
does all he can to make his guests comfortable, and partially
succeeds. This inn is at the corner of the main street of the
Chinese quarter, in a very lively position, as it also looks down
the main street of the Japanese settlement. The Chinese set-
tlement is solid, with a hsuidsome y amen and guild hall, and
rows of thriving and substantial shops. Busy and noisy with
the continual letting off of crackers and beating of drums and
gongs, the Chinese were obviously far ahead of the Japanese
in trade. They had nearly a monopoly of the foreign '* cus-
tom " ; their large "houses" in Chemulpo had branches in
Seoul, and if there were any foreign requirement which they
could not meet, they procured the article from Shanghai with-
out loss of time. The haulage of freight to Seoul was in their
hands, and the market gardening, and much besides. Late
into the night they were at work, and they used the roadway
for drying hides and storing kerosene tins and packing cases.
Scarcely did the noise of night cease when the din of morning
began. To these hard-working and money-making people rest
seemed a superfluity.

The Japanese settlement is far more populous, extensive,
and pretentious. Their Consulate is imposing enough for a
legation. They have several streets of small shops, which
supply the needs chiefly of people of their own nationality, for
foreigners patronize Ah Wong and Itai, and the Koreans, who
hate the Japanese with a hatred three centuries old, also deal
chiefly with the Chinese. But though the Japanese were out-
stripped in trade by the Chinese, their position in Korea, even
before the war, was an influential one. They gave " postal

32 Korea and Her Neighbors

facilities" between the treaty ports and Seoul and carried the
foreign mails, and they established branches of the First Na-
tional Bank ' in the capital and treaty ports, with which the
resident foreigners have for years transacted their business, and
in which they have full confidence. I lost no time in opening
an account with this Bank in Chemulpo, receiving an English
check-book and pass-book, and on all occasions courtesy and
all needed help. Partly owing to the fact that English cot-
tons for Korea are made in bales too big for the Lilliputian
Korean pony, involving reduction to more manageable dimen-
sions on being landed, and partly to causes which obtain else-
where, the Japanese are so successfully pushing their cottons
in Korea, that while they constituted only 3 per cent, of the
imports in 1887, they had risen to something like 40 per cent,
in 1894.^ There is a rapidly growing demand for yarn to be
woven on native looms. The Japanese are well to the front
with steam and sailing tonnage. Of 198 steamers entered in-
wards in 1893, 132 were Japanese; and out of 325 sailing
vessels, 232 were Japanese. It is on record that an English
merchantman was once seen in Chemulpo roads, but actually
the British mercantile flag, unless on a chartered steamer, is
not known in Korean waters. Nor was there in 1894 an
English merchant in the Korean treaty ports, or an English
house of business, large or small, in Korea.

Just then rice was in the ascendant. Japan by means of
pressure had induced the Korean Government to consent to
suspend the decree forbidding its export, and on a certain
date the sluices were to be opened. Stacks of rice bags
covered the beach, rice in bulk being measured into bags was
piled on mats in the roadways, ponies and coolies rice-laden
filed in strings down the streets, while in the roadstead a num-
ber of Japanese steamers and junks awaited the taking off the
embargo at midnight on 6th March. A regular rice babel

• Now the Dai Ichi Gingo.

' For latest trade statistics see appendix B.

First Impressions of Korea 33

prevailed in the town and on the beach, and much disaffection
prevailed among the Koreans at the rise in the price of their
staple article of diet. Japanese agents scoured the whole
country for rice, and every cattie of it which could be spared
from consumption was bought in preparation for the war of
wdiich no one in Korea dreamed at that time. The rice bustle
gave Chemulpo an appearance of a thriving trade which it is
not wont to have except in the Chinese settlement. Its foreign
population in 1897 was 4,357.

The reader may wonder where the Koreans are at Che-
mulpo, and in truth 1 had almost forgotten them, for they are of
little account. The increasing native town lies outside the
Japanese settlement on the Seoul road, clustering round the
base of the hill on which the English church stands, and
scrambling up it, mud hovels planting themselves on every
ledge, attained by filthy alleys, swarming with quiet dirty
children, who look on the high-road to emulate the do-less Jiess
of their fathers. Korean, too, is the official yamen at the top
of the hill, and Korean its methods of punishment, its brutal
flagellations by yameii runners, its beating of criminals to
death, their howls of anguish penetrating the rooms of the ad-
jacent English mission, and Korean too are the bribery and
corruption which make it and nearly every yame?i sinks of in-
iquity. The gate with its double curved roofs and drum
chamber over the gateway remind the stranger that though the
capital and energy of Chemulpo are foreign, the government
is native. Not Korean is the abode of mercy on the other
side of the road from the yamen, the hospital connected with
Bishop Corfe's mission, where in a small Korean building the
sick are received, tended, and generally cured by Dr. Landis,
who himself lives as a Korean in rooms 8 feet by 6, studying,
writing, eating, without chair or table, and accessible at all
times to all comers. The 6,700 inhabitants of the Korean
town, or rather the male half of them, are always on the move.
The narrow roads are always full of them, sauntering along in

34

Korea and Her Neighbors

their dress bats, not apparently doing anything. It is old
Fusan over again, except that there are permanent shops, with
stocks-in-trade worth from one to twenty dollars; and as an
hour is easily spent over a transaction involving a few cash,
there is an appearance of business kept up. In the settlement
the Koreans work as porters and carry preposterous weights on
their wooden packsaddles.

■-V"'

^e.\h -^^-'^A

GATE OF OLD FUSAN

CHAPTER II

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CAPITAL

CHEMULPO, being on the island-studded estuary of the
Han, which is navigable for the 56 miles up to Ma-pu,
the river port of Seoul, it eventually occurred to some persons
more enterprising than their neighbors to establish steam com-
munication between the two. Manifold are the disasters which
have attended this simple undertaking. Nearly every passen-
ger who has entrusted himself to the river has a tale to tell of
the boat being deposited on a sandbank, and of futile endeav-
ors to get off, of fretting and fuming, usually ending in hail-
ing a passing sajnpan and getting up to Ma-pu many hours be-
hind time, tired, hungry, and disgusted. For the steam
launches are only half powered for their work, the tTdes are
strong, the river shallows often, and its sandbanks shift almost
from tide to tide. Hence this natural highway is not much
patronized by people who respect themselves, and all sorts of
arrangements are made for getting up to the capital by "road."
There is, properly speaking, no road, but the word serves.
Mr. Gardner, the British acting Consul-General in Seoul,
kindly arranged to escort me the 25 miles, and I went up in
seven hours in a chair with six bearers, jolly fellows, who
joked and laughed and raced the Consul's pony. Traffic has
worn for itself a track, often indefinite, but usually straggling
over and sterilizing a width enough for three or four highways,
and often making a new departure to avoid deep mud holes.
The mud is nearly bottomless. Bullock-carts owned by Chi-
nese attempt the transit of goods, and two or three embedded
in the mud till the spring showed with what success. Near

35

36 Korea and Her Neighbors

Ma-pu all traffic has to cross a small plain of deep sand. Pack
bulls, noble animals, and men are the carriers of goods. The
redoubtable Korean pony was not to be seen. Foot passen-
gers in dress hats and wadded white garments were fairly
numerous.

The track lies through rolling country, well cultivated.
There are only two or three villages on the road, but there are
many, surrounded by fruit trees, in the folds of the adjacent
low hills; stunted pines {Finns sinensis) abound, and often
indicate places of burial. The hillsides are much taken up
with graves. There are wooden sign or distant posts, with
grotesque human faces upon them, chiefly that of Chang Sun,
a traitor, whose misdemeanors were committed 1,000 years
ago. The general aspect of the country is bare and monot-
onous. Except for the orchards and the spindly pines, there
is no wood. There is no beauty of form, nor any of those
signs of exclusiveness, such as gates or walls, which give some-
thing of dignity to a landscape. These were my first impres-
sions. But I came to see on later journeys that even on that
road th^re can be a beauty and fascination in the scenery when
glorified and idealized by the unrivalled atmosphere of a
Korean winter, which it is a delight even to recall, and that
the situation of Seoul for a sort of weird picturesqueness com-
pares favorably with that of almost any other capital, but its
orientalism, a marked feature of which was its specially self-
asserting dirt, is being fast improved off the face of the
earth.

From the low pass known as the Gap, there is a view of the
hills in the neighborhood of Seoul, and before reaching the
Han these, glorified and exaggerated by an effect of atmos-
phere, took on something of grandeur. Crossing the Han in
a scow to which my chair accommodated itself more readily
than Mr. Gardner's pony, and encountering ferry boats full of
pack bulls bearing the night soil of the city to the country,
we landed on the rough, steep, filthy, miry river bank, and

First Impressions of the Capital 37

were at once in the foul, narrow, slimy, rough street of Ma-pu,
a twisted alley full of mean shops for the sale of native com-
modities, of bulls carrying mountains of brushwood which
nearly filled up the roadway ; and with a crowd, masculine
solely, which swayed and loafed, and did nothing in particu-
lar. Some quiet agricultural country, and some fine trees, a
resemblance to the land of the Bakhtiari Lurs, in the fact of
one man working a spade or shovel, while three others helped
him to turn up the soil by an arrangement of ropes, then two
chairs with bearers in blue uniforms, carrying Mrs. and Miss
Gardner, accompanied by Bishop Corfe, Mr. M'Leavy Brown,
the Chief Commissioner of Korean Customs, and Mr. Fox,
the Assistant Consul, then the hovels and alleys became thick,
and we were in extra-mural Seoul. A lofty wall, pierced by a
deep double-roofed gateway, was passed, and ten minutes more
of miserable alleys brought us to a breezy hill, crowned by
the staring red brick buildings of the English Legation and
Consular offices.

The Russian Legation has taken another and a higher, and
its loftly tower and fine facade are the most conspicuous objects
in the city, while a third is covered with buildings, some
Korean and tasteful, but others in a painful style of architec-
ture, a combination of the factory with the meeting-house, be-
longing to the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, the
American Presbyterians occupying a humbler position below.
A hill on the other side of the town is dedicated to Japan, and
so in every part of the city the foreigner, shut out till 1883, is
making his presence felt, and is undermining that which is
Korean in the Korean capital by the slow process of contact.

One of the most remarkable indications of tlie changes
which is stealing over the Hermit City is tliat a nearly finished
Roman Catholic Cathedral, of very large size, witli a clergy-
house and orphanages, occupies one of the most prominent
positions in Seoul. The King's father, the Tai-Won-Kun,
still actively engaged in politics, is the man who, thirty years

38 Korea and Her Neighbors

ago, persecuted the Roman Christians so cruelly and persist-
ently as to raise up for Korea a " noble army of martyrs."

I know Seoul by day and night, its palaces and its slums,
its unspeakable meanness and faded splendors, its purposeless
crowds, its mediaeval processions, which for barbaric splendor
cannot be matched on earth, the filth of its crowded alleys,
and its pitiful attempt to retain its manners, customs, and
identity as the capital of an ancient monarchy in face of the
host of disintegrating influences which are at work, but it is
not at first that one '' takes it in." I had known it for a year
before I appreciated it, or fully realized that it is entitled to be
regarded as one of the great capitals of the world, with its
supposed population of a quarter of a million, and that few
capitals are more beautifully situated.^ One hundred and
twenty feet above the sea, in Lat. 37° 34' N. and Long. 127°
6' E., mountain girdled, for the definite peaks and abrupt
elevation of its hills give them the grandeur of mountains,
though their highest summit, San-kak-San, has only an altitude
of 2,627 feet, few cities can boast, as Seoul can, that tigers
and leopards are shot within their walls ! Arid and forbid-
ding these mountains look at times, their ridges broken up
into black crags and pinnacles, ofttimes rising from among dis-
torted pines, but there are evenings of purple glory, when
every forbidding peak gleams like an amethyst with a pink
translucency, and the shadows are cobalt and the sky is green
and gold. Fair are the surroundings too in early spring, when
a delicate green mist veils the hills, and their sides are flushed
with the heliotrope azalea, and flame of plum, and blush of
cherry, and tremulousness of peach blossom appear in un-
expected quarters.

Looking down on this great city, which has the aspect of a
lotus pond in November, or an expanse of overripe mush-

I By a careful census taken in February, 1897, ^^^ intra-mural popula-
tion of Seoul was 144,636 souls, and the extra-mural 75,189, total 219,-
815, males predominating to the extent of 11,079.

o

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H

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First Impressions of the Capital 39

rooms, the eye naturally follows the course of the wall, which
is discerned in most outlandish places, climbing Nam-San in
one direction, and going clear over the crest of Puk-han in
another, enclosing a piece of forest here, and a vacant plain
there, descending into ravines, disappearing and reappearing
when least expected. This wall, which contrives to look
nearly as solid as the hillsides which it climbs, is from 25 to
40 feet in height, and 14 miles in circumference (according to
Mr. Fox of H.B.M.'s Consular Service), battlemented along
its entire length, and pierced by eight gateways, solid arches
or tunnels of stone, surmounted by lofty gate houses with one,
two, or three curved tiled roofs. These are closed from sunset
to sunrise by massive wooden gates, heavily bossed and strength-
ened with iron, bearing, following Chinese fashion, high-
sounding names, such as the " Gate of Bright Amiability,"
the " Gate of High Ceremony," the " Gate of Elevated Hu-
manity."

The wall consists of a bank of earth faced with masonry,
or of solid masonry alone, and is on the whole in tolerable
repair. It is on the side nearest the river, and onwards in the
direction of the Peking Pass, that extra-mural Seoul has ex-
panded. One gate is the Gate of the Dead, only a royal
corpse being permitted to be carried out by any other. By
another gate criminals passed out to be beheaded, and outside
another their heads were exposed for some days after execu-
tion, hanging from camp-kettle stands. The north gate, high
on Puk-han, is kept closed, only to be opened in case the King
is compelled to escape to one of the so-called fortresses on that
mountain.

Outside the wall is charming country, broken into hills and
wooded valleys, with knolls sacrificed to stately royal tombs,
with their environment of fine trees, and villages in romantic
positions among orchards and garden cultivation. Few
Eastern cities have prettier walks and rides in their immediate
neighborhood, or greater possibilities of rapid escape into

40 Korea and Her Neighbors

sylvan solitudes, and I must add that no city has environs so
safe, and that ladies without a European escort can ride, as I
have done, in every direction outside the walls without meet-
ing with the slightest annoyance.

I shrink from describing intra-mural Seoul. ^ I thought it
the foulest city on earth till I saw Peking, and its smells the
most odious, till I encountered those of Shao-shing ! For a
great city and a capital its meanness is indescribable. Eti-
quette forbids the erection of two-storied houses, consequently
an estimated quarter of a million people are living on "the
ground," chiefly in labyrinthine alleys, many of them not
wide enough for two loaded bulls to pass, indeed barely wide
enough for one man to pass a loaded bull, and further narrowed
by a series of vile holes or green, slimy ditches, which receive
the solid and liquid refuse of the houses, their foul and fetid
margins being the favorite resort of half-naked children, be-
grimed with dirt, and of big, mangy, blear-eyed dogs, which
wallow in the slime or blink in the sun. There too the itin-
erant vendor of "small wares," and candies dyed flaring
colors with aniline dyes, establishes himself, puts a few planks
across the ditch, and his goods, worth perhaps a dollar,
thereon. But even Seoul has its " spring cleaning," and I en-
countered on the sand plain of the Han, on the ferry, and on
the road from Ma-pu to Seoul, innumerable bulls carrying pan-
niers laden with the contents of the city ditches.

The houses abutting on these ditches are generally hovels
with deep eaves and thatched roofs, presenting nothing to the
street but a mud wall, with occasionally a small paper window
just under the roof, indicating the men's quarters, and invari-
ably, at a height varying from 2 to 3 feet above the ditch, a

J Nous avons change tout cela. As will be seen from a chapter near
the end of the book, the Chief Commissioner of Customs, energetically
seconded by the Governor of Seoul, has worked surprising improvements
and sanitary changes which, if carried out perseveringly, will redeem the
capital from the charges which travellers have brought against it.

First Impressions of the Capital 41

blackened smoke-hole, the vent for the smoke and heated air,
which have done their duty in warming the floor of the house.
All day long bulls laden with bruslnvood to a great height are
entering the city, and at six o'clock this pine brush, preparing
to do the cooking and warming for the population, fills every
lane in Seoul with aromatic smoke, which hangs over it with
remarkable punctuality. Even the superior houses, which have
curved and tiled roofs, present nothing better to the street than
this debased appearance.

The shops partake of the general meanness. Shops with a
stock-in-trade which may be worth six dollars abound. It is
easy to walk in Seoul without molestation, but any one stand-
ing to look at anything attracts a great crowd, so that it is as
well that there is nothing to look at. The shops have literally
not a noteworthy feature. Their one characteristic is that
they have none ! The best shops are near the Great Bell, be-
side which formerly stood a stone with an inscription calling
on all Koreans to put intruding foreigners to death. So small
are they that all goods are within reach of the hand. In one
of the three broad streets, there are double rows of removable
booths, in which now and then a small box of Korean niello
work, iron inlaid with silver, may be picked up. In these and
others the principal commodities are white cottons, straw
shoes, bamboo hats, coarse pottery, candlesticks, with draught
screens, combs, glass beads, pipes, tobacco pouches, spittoons,
horn-rimmed goggles, much worn by officials, paper of many
kinds, wooden pillow-ends, decorated pillowcases, fans, ink-
cases, huge wooden saddles with green leather flaps bossed with
silver, laundry sticks, dried persimmons, loathsome candies
dyed magenta, scarlet, and green, masses of dried seaweed
and fungi, and ill-chosen collections of the most trumpery
of foreign trash, such as sixpenny kerosene lamps, hand
mirrors, tinsel vases, etc., the genius of bad taste presiding
over all.

Plain brass dinner sets and other brass articles are made,

42 Korea and Her Neighbors

and some mother-of-pearl inlaying in black lacquer from old
designs is occasionally to be purchased, and embroideries in
silk and gold thread, but the designs are ugly, and the color-
ing atrocious. Foreigners have bestowed the name Cabinet
Street on a street near the English Legation, given up to the
making of bureaus and marriage chests. These, though not
massive, look so, and are really handsome, some being of solid
chestnut wood, others veneered with maple or peach, and
bossed, strapped, and hinged with brass, besides being orna-
mented with great brass hasps and brass padlocks 6 inches
long. These, besides being thoroughly Korean, are distinctly
decorative. There are few buyers, except in the early morn-
ing, and shopping does not seem a pastime, partly because
none but the poorest class of women can go out on foot by
daylight.

In the booths are to be seen tobacco pipes, pipestems, and
bowls, coarse glazed pottery, rice bowls, Japanese lucifer
matches, aniline dyes, tobacco pouches, purses, flint and tinder
pouches, rolls of oiled paper, tassels, silk cord, nuts of the
edible pine, rice, millet, maize, peas, beans, string shoes, old
crinoline hats, bamboo and reed hats in endless variety, and
coarse native cotton, very narrow.

In this great human hive, the ordinary sightseer finds his
vocation gone. The inhabitants constitute the ''sight" of
Seoul. The great bronze bell, said to be the third largest in
the world, is one of the few ''sights " usually seen by stran-
gers. It hangs in a bell tower in the centre of the city, and
bears the following inscription : —

" Sye Cho the Great, 12*^ year Man cha [year of the cycle]
and moon, the 4'^ year of the great Ming Emperor Hsiian-hua
[a.d. 1468], the head of the bureau of Royal despatches, Sye
Ko chyeng, bearing the title Sa Ka Chyeng, had this pavilion
erected and this bell hung."

This bell, whose dull heavy boom is heard in all parts of
Seoul, has opened and closed the gates for five centuries.

First Impressions of the Capital 43

The grand triple gateway of the Royal Palace with its double
roof, the old audience hall in the Mulberry Gardens, and the
decorative roofs of the gate towers, are all seen in an hour.
There remains the Marble Pagoda, seven centuries old, so com-
pletely hidden away in the back yard of a house in one of the
foulest and narrowest alleys of the city, that many people
never see it at all. As I was intent on photographing some of
the reliefs upon it, I visited it five times, and each time with
fresh admiration ; but so wedged in is it, that one can only get
any kind of view of it by climbing on the top of a wall.
Every part is carved, and the flat parts richly so, some of the
tablets representing Hindu divinities, while others seem to
portray the various stages of the soul's progress towards Nir-
vana. The designs are undoubtedly Indian, modified by
Chinese artists, and this thing of beauty stands on the site of
a Buddhist monastery. It is a thirteen-storied pagoda, but
three stories were taken off in the Japanese invasion three
centuries ago, and placed on the ground uninjured. So they
remained, but on my last visit children had defaced the ex-
quisite carving, and were offering portions for sale. Not far
off is another relic of antiquity, a decorated and inscribed
tablet standing on the back of a granite turtle of prodigious
size. Outside the west gate, on a plain near the Peking Pass,
was a roofed and highly decorated arch of that form known as
the pailow, and close by it a sort of palace hall, in which
every new sovereign of Korea waited for the coming of a
special envoy from Peking, whom he joined at the pailow, ac-
companying him to the palace, where he received from him his
investiture as sovereign.

On the slope of Nam San the white wooden buildings, sim-
ple and unpretentious, of the Japanese Legation are situated,
and below them a Japanese colony of nearly 5,000 persons,
equipped with tea-houses, a theatre, and the various arrange-
ments essential to Japanese well-being. There, in acute con-
trast to everything Korean, are to be seen streets of shops and

44 Korea and Her Neighbors

houses where cleanliness, daintiness, and thrift reign supreme,
and unveiled women, and men in girdled dressing-gowns and
clogs, move about as freely as in Japan. There also are to be
seen minute soldiers or military police, and smart be-sworded
officers, who change guard at due intervals ; nor are such pre-
cautions needless, for the heredity of hate is strong in Korea,
and on two occasions the members of this Legation have had
to fight their way down to the sea. The Legation was occu-
pied at the time of my first visit by Mr. Otori, an elderly man
with pendulous white whiskers, who went much into the little
society which Seoul boasts, talked nothings, and gave no
promise of the rough vigor which he showed a few months
later. There also are the Japanese bank and post office, both
admirably managed.

The Chinese colony was in 1894 nearly as large, and dif-
fered in no respect from such a colony anywhere else. The
foreigners depend for many things on the Chinese shops, and
as the Koreans like the Chinese, they do some trade with
them also. The imposing element connected with China was
the yamen of Yuan, the Minister Resident and representative
of Korea's Suzerain, by many people regarded as ** the power
behind the throne," who is reported to have gone more than
once unbidden into the King's presence, and to have re-
proached him with his conduct of affairs. Great courtyards
and lofty gates on which are painted the usual guardian gods,
and a brick dragon screen, seclude the palace in which Yuan
lived with his guards and large retinue ; and the number of
big, supercilious men, dressed in rich brocades and satins,
who hung about both this Palace and the Consulate, impressed
the Koreans with the power and stateliness within. The
Americans were very severe on Yuan, but so far as I could
learn his chief fault was that he let things alone, and neglected
to use his unquestionably great power in favor of reform and
common honesty — but he was a Chinese mandarin ! He
possessed the power of life and death over Chinamen,

First Impressions of the Capital 45

and his punishments were often to our thinking barbarous,
but the Chinese feared him so much that they treated the
Koreans fairly well, which is more than can be said of the
Japanese.

One of the <' sights" of Seoul is the stream or drain or
watercourse, a wide, walled, open conduit, along which a
dark-colored festering stream slowly drags its malodorous
length, among manure and refuse heaps which cover up most
of what was once its shingly bed. There, tired of crowds
masculine solely, one may be refreshed by the sight of women
of the poorest class, some ladling into pails the compound
which passes for water, and others washing clothes in the fetid
pools which pass for a stream. All wear one costume, which
is peculiar to the capital, a green silk coat — a man's coat with
the *' neck" put over the head and clutched below the eyes,
and long wide sleeves falling from the ears. It is as well that
the Korean woman is concealed, for she is not a houri. Wash-
ing is her manifest destiny so long as her lord wears white.
She washes in this foul river, in the pond of the Mulberry
Palace, in every wet ditch, and outside the walls in the few
streams which exist. Clothes are partially unpicked, boiled
with ley three times, rolled into hard bundles, and pounded
with heavy sticks on stones. After being dried they are
beaten with wooden sticks on cylinders, till they attain a
polish resembling dull satin. The women are slaves to the
laundry, and the only sound which breaks the stillness of a
Seoul night is the regular beat of their laundry sticks.

From the beautiful hill Nam-San, from the Lone Tree Hill,
and from a hill above the old Mulberry Palace, Seoul is best
seen, with its mountainous surroundings, here and there dark
with pines, but mostly naked, falling down upon the city in
black arid corrugations. These mountains enclose a valley
about 5 miles long by 3 broad, into which 200,000 people are
crammed and wedged. The city is a sea of low brown roofs,
mostly of thatch, and all but monotonous, no trees and no

46 Korea and Her Neighbors

open spaces. Rising out of this brown sea there are the
curved double roofs of the gates, and the gray granite walls of
the royal palaces, and within them the sweeping roofs of vari-
ous audience halls. Cutting the city across by running from
the east to the west gate is one broad street, another striking
off from this runs to the south gate, and a third 60 yards wide
runs from the great central artery to the palace. This is the
only one which is kept clear of encumbrance at all times,
the others being occupied by double rows of booths, leaving
only a narrow space for traffic on either side. When I first
looked down on Seoul early in March, one street along its
whole length appeared to be still encumbered with the drift of
the previous winter's snow. It was only by the aid of a glass
that I discovered that this is the great promenade, and that
the snowdrift was just the garments of the Koreans, whitened
by ceaseless labor with the laundry sticks. In these three
broad streets the moving crowd of men in white robes and
black dress hats seldom flags. They seem destitute of any ob-
ject. Many of them are of the yang-ban or noble class, to
whom a rigid etiquette forbids any but official or tutorial occu-
pation, and many of whom exist by hanging on to their more
fortunate relatives. Young men of the middle class imitate
their nonchalance and swinging gait.

There, too, are to be seen officials, superbly dressed,
mounted on very fat but handsome ponies, with profuse manes
and tails, the riders sitting uneasily on the tops of saddles
with showy caparisonings a foot high, holding on to the saddle
bow, two retainers leading the steed, and two more holding
the rider in his place ; or officials in palanquins, with bearers
at a run, amid large retinues. In the more plebeian streets
nothing is to be seen but bulls carrying pine brush, strings of
ponies loaded with salt or country produce, water-carriers
with pails slung on a yoke, splashing their contents, and
coolies carrying burdens on wooden pack saddles.

But in the narrower alleys, of which there are hundreds,

First Impressions of the Capital 47

further narrowed by the low deep eaves, and the vile ditches
outside the houses, only two men can pass each other, and the
noble red bull with his load of brushwood is rarely seen. Be-
tween these miles of mud walls, deep eaves, green slimy ditches,
and blackened smoke holes, few besides the male inhabitants
and burden bearers are seen to move. They are the paradise
of mangy dogs. Every house has a dog and a square hole
through which he can just creep. He yelps furiously at a
stranger, and runs away at the shaking of an umbrella. He
was the sole scavenger of Seoul, and a very inefficient one.
He is neither the friend nor companion of man. He is
ignorant of Korean and every other spoken language. His
bark at night announces peril from thieves. He is almost wild.
When young he is killed and eaten in spring.

I have mentioned the women of the lower classes, who wash
clothes and draw water in the daytime. Many of these were
domestic slaves, and all are of the lowest class. Korean
women are very rigidly secluded, perhaps more absolutely so
than the women of any other nation. In the capital a very
curious arrangement prevailed. About eight o'clock the great
bell tolled a signal for men to retire into their houses, and for
women to come out and amuse themselves, and visit their
friends. The rule which clears the streets of men occasionally
lapses, and then some incident occurs which causes it to be
rigorously reenforced. So it was at the time of my arrival,
and the pitch dark streets presented the singular spectacle of
being tenanted solely by bodies of women with servants carry-
ing lanterns. From its operation were exempted blind men,
officials, foreigners' servants, and persons carrying prescrip-
tions to the druggists'. These were often forged for the purpose
of escape from durance vile, and a few people got long staffs
and personated blind men. At twelve the bell again boomed,
women retired, and men were at liberty to go abroad. A lady
of high position told me that she had never seen the streets of
Seoul by daylight.

48

Korea and Her Neighbors

The nocturnal silence is very impressive. There is no
human hum, throb, or gurgle. The darkness too is absolute,
as there are few if any lighted windows to the streets. Upon
a silence which may be felt, the deep, penetrating boom of
the great bell breaks with a sound which is almost ominous.

TURTLE STONE

CHAPTER III

THE KUR-DONG

BEFORE leaving England letters from Korea had warned
me of the difficulty of travelling in the interior, of getting
a trustworthy servant, and above all, a trustworthy interpreter.
Weeks passed by, and though Bishop Corfe and others exerted
themselves on my behalf, these essential requisites were not
forthcoming, for to find a reliable English-speaking Korean is
well-nigh impossible. There are English-speaking Koreans
who have learned English, some in the Government School,
and others in the Methodist Episcopal School, and many of
these I interviewed. The English of all was infirm, and they
were all limp and timid, a set of poor creatures. Some of
them seemed very anxious to go with me, and were partially
engaged, and the next day came, looking uneasy, and balanc-
ing themselves on the edge of their chairs, told me that their
mothers said they must not go because there were tigers, or
that three months was too long a journey, or that they could
not go so far from their families, etc. At last a young man
came who really spoke passable English, but on entering the
room with a familiar nod, he threw himself down in an easy-
chair, swinging his leg over the arm ! He asked many ques-
tions about the journey, said it was very long to be away from
Seoul, and that he should require one horse for his baggage
and another for himself. I remarked that, in order to get
through the difficulties of the journey, it would be necessary to
limit the baggage as much as possible. He said he could not
go with fewer than nine suits of clothes ! I remarked that a
foreigner would only take two, and that I should reduce my-

49

50 Korea and Her Neighbors

self to two. *' Yes," he replied, '* but foreigners are so dirty
in their habits.*' This from a Korean ! So once more I had
to settle down, and accept the kindly hospitality of my friends,
trusting that something would '^ turn up."

By this delay I came in for the Kur-dong^^ one of the most
remarkable spectacles I ever saw, and it had the added interest
of being seen in its splendor for probably the last time, as
circumstances which have since occurred, and the necessity
for economy, must put an end to much of the scenic display.
The occasion was a visit of the King in state to sacrifice in
one of the ancestral temples of his dynasty, members of which
have occupied the Korean throne for five centuries. Living
secluded in his palace, guarded by i,ooo men, his subjects
forbidden to pronounce his name, which indeed is seldom
known, in total ignorance of any other aspect of his kingdom
and capital than that furnished by the two streets through
which he passes to offer sacrifice, the days on which he per-
forms this pious act offer to his subjects their sole opportuni-
ties of gazing on his august countenance. As the Queen's
procession passed by on the day of the Duke of York's mar-
riage, I heard a workingman say, *'It's we as pays, and we
likes to get the valey for our money." The Korean pays in
another and heavier sense, and as in tens of thousands he
crowds in reverential silence the route of the Kur-dong, he is
probably glad that the one brilliant spectacle of the year
should be as splendid as possible.

The monotony of Seoul is something remarkable. Brown
mountains "picked out" in black, brown mud walls, brown
roofs, brown roadways, whether mud or dust, while humanity
is in black and white. Always the same bundled-up women
clutching their green coats under their eyes, always the samie
surge of yang-bajts and their familiars swinging along South

> If an apology be necessary for the following minute description of
this unique ceremonial, I offer it on the ground that it was probably the
last of its kind, and that full details of it have not been given before.

The Kur-dong ^i

Street, the same strings of squealing ponies ''spoiling for a
fight," the same processions of majestic red bulls under tower-
ing loads of brushwood, the same coolies in dirty white, for-
ever carrying burdens, the same joyless dirty children getting
through life on the gutters' edge, and the same brownish dogs,
feebly wrangling over offal. On such monotony and color-
lessness, the Kur-dong bursts like the sun. Alas for this mean
but fascinating capital, that the most recent steps towards
civilization should involve the abolition of its one spectacle !

By six in the morning of the looked-for day we were on
our way from the English Legation to a position near the Great
Bell, all the male population of the alleys taking the same
direction, along with children in colors, and some of the
poorer class of women with gay handkerchiefs folded Roman
fashion on their hair. For the first time I saw the grand pro-
portions of the road called by foreigners South Street. The
double rows of booths had been removed the night before,
and along the side of the street, at intervals of 20 yards,
torches 10 feet high were let into the ground to light the King
on his return from sacrificing. It is only by its imposing
width that this great street lends itself to such a display, for
the houses are low and mean, and on one side at least are only
superior hovels. In place of the booths the subjects were
massed twelve deep, the regularity of the front row being pre-
served by a number of yamen runners, who brought down
their wooden paddles with an unmerciful whack on any one
breaking the line. The singular monotony of baggy white
coats and black crinoline hats was relieved by boy bride-
grooms in yellow hats and rose pink coats, by the green silk
coats of women, and the green, pink, heliotrope and Turkey
red dresses of children. The crowd had a quietly pleased but
very limp look. There was no jollity or excitement, no flags
or popular demonstrations, and scarcely a hum from a con-
course which must have numbered at least 150,000, half the
city, together with numbers from the country who had walked

^2 Korea and Her Neighbors

three and four days to see the spectacle. Squalid and mean
is ordinary Korean life, and the King is a myth for most of
the year. No wonder that the people turn out to see as splen-
did a spectacle as the world has to show, its splendor centring
round their usually secluded sovereign. It is to the glory of a
dynasty which has occupied the Korean throne for five cen-
turies as well as in honor of the present occupant.

The hour of leaving the palace had been announced as 6 a.
M., but though it was 7.30 before the boom of a heavy gun
announced that the procession was in motion, the interest
never flagged the whole time. Hundreds of coolies sprinkled
red earth for the width of a foot along the middle of the
streets, for hypothetically the King must not pass over soil
which has been trodden by the feet of his subjects. Squad-
rons of cavalry, with coolies leading their shabby ponies, took
up positions along the route, and in a great mass in front of
us. The troopers sat on the ground smoking, till a very dis-
trait bugle-call sent them to their saddles. The ponies bit,
kicked, and squealed, and the grotesque and often ineffectual
attempts of the men to mount them provoked the laughter of
the crowd, as one trooper after another, with one foot in the
stirrup and the other on the ground, hopped round at the
pleasure of his steed. After all, with the help of their coolies,
were mounted, whacks secretly administered by men in the
crowd nearly unhorsed many of them, but they clung with
both hands to their saddle bows and eventually formed into a
ragged line.

Among the very curious sights were poles carried at meas-
ured distances supporting rectangular frames resembling small
umbrella stands, filled with feathered arrows, and messengers
dashing along as if they had been shot and were escaping from
another shaft, for from the backs of their collars protruded
arrows which had apparently entered obliquely. Either on
the back or breast or both of the superb dresses of officials
were satin squares embroidered in unique designs, representing

The Kur-dong 53

birds and beasts, storks indicating civil, and tigers military,
rank, while the number of birds or animals on the lozenge de-
noted the wearer's exact position.

Though there were long stretches of silence, scarcely broken
by the hum of a multitude, there were noisy interludes, novel
in their nature, produced by men, sometimes fifteen in a row,
who carried poles with a number of steel rings loosely strung
upon them, which they tossed into the air and allowed to fall
against each other with a metallic clink, loud and strident.
Likewise the trains of servants in attendance on mandarins
emitted peculiar cries, sounding G in unison, then raising
their note and singing C three times, afterwards, with a fall-
ing cadence, singing G again.

But of the noises which passed for music, the most curi-
ous as to method was that made by the drummers, who
marched irregularly in open order in lines extending across the
broad roadway. These carried bowl-shaped kettledrums
slung horizontally, and bass drum sticks mainly hidden by
their voluminous sleeves. In time with the marching, the
right hand stick rose above the drummer's head, then the left
stick in like manner, but both fell again nearly to the drum
without emitting a sound! The next act of the performance
consisted in lifting both sticks above the head together and
again bringing them down silently. Finally the sticks were
crossed, and during two marching steps rose feebly, and as
feebly fell on the ends of the drum, producing a muffled
sound, and this programme was repeated during the duration
of the march.

Soldiers in rusty black belted frocks, wide trousers, band-
aged into padded socks, and straw shoes, stacked arms in a
side street. Closed black and colored chairs went past at a
trot. Palace attendants in hundreds in brown glazed cotton
sleeved cloaks, blue under robes* tied below the knee with
bunches of red ribbon, and stiff black hats, with heavy fan-
shaped plumes of peacock's feathers, rode ragged ponies on

54 Korea and Her Neighbors

gay saddles of great height, without bridles, the animals being
led by coolies. High officials passed in numbers in chairs or
on pony back, each with from twenty to thirty gay attendants
running beside him, and a row of bannermen extending across
the broad street behind him, each man with a silk banner
bearing the cognomen of his lord. These officials were su-
perbly dressed, and made a splendid show. They wore black,
high-crowned hats, with long crimson tassels behind, and
heavy, black ostrich plumes falling over the brim in front,
mazarine blue silk robes, split up to the waist behind, with
orange silk under robes and most voluminous crimson trousers,
loosely tied above the ankles with knots of sky blue ribbon,
while streamers of ribbon fell from throats and girdles, and
the hats were secured by throat lashes of large amber beads.
Each carried over his shoulder a yellow silk banneret with his
style in Chinese characters in crimson upon it, and in the
same hand his baton of office, with a profusion of streamers of
rich ribbons depending from it. The sleeves were orange in
the upper part and crimson in the lower, and very full.

The overfed and self-willed ponies, chiefly roan and gray,
are very handsome, and showily caparisoned, the heads cov-
ered with blue, red, and yellow balls, and surmounted with
great crimson silk pompons, the bridles a couple of crimson
silk scarves, the saddles a sort of leather-covered padded pack
saddle 12 inches above the animal's back, with wide, deep
flaps of bright green silver-bossed leather hanging down on
either side, the cruppers folded white silk, and the breastplate
shields of gold embroidery. The gorgeous rider, lifted by his
servants upon this elevation, stands erect in his stirrups with
his feet not halfway down his pony's sides, his left hand
clutching rather than holding an arch placed for this purpose
at the bow of the saddle. These officials made no attempt to
hold their own bridles, their ponies were led by servants, re-
tainers supported them by the feet on either side, and as their
mounts showed their resentment of the pace and circumstances

The Kur-dong 55

by twistings and struggUngs with their grooms, the faces of
the riders expressed " a fearful joy," if "joy" " was.

Waves of color and Korean grandeur rolled by, official pro-
cessions, palace attendants, bannerraen, with large silk banners
trailing on the stiff breeze, each flagstaff crested with a tuft of
pheasant's feathers, the King's chief cook, with an enormous
retinue, more palace servants, smoking long pipes, drummers
fifers, couriers at a gallop, with arrows stuck into the necks of
their coats, holding on to their saddles and rope bridles, mixed
up with dishevelled ponies with ragged pack saddles, carrying
cushions, lacquer boxes, eatables, cooking utensils and smok-
ing apparatus, led caparisoned ponies, bowmen, soldiers strag^
glfng loosely, armed with matchlock guns, till several thousand
persons had passed. Yet this was not the procession, though
it might well have served for one.

At 7 ^o, while this " march past" was still going on, a gun
was fired, and the great bell, which was very close to t.s
boomed heavily, and a fanfaronade of trumpets and the shrdl
scream of fifes announced that Li Hs. had at l^st left the
palace. The cavalry opposite us prepared to receive His Maj-
esty by turning tail, a man«uvre not accomplished without
much squealing and fighting. There was a general stir among
the spectators, men with arrows in their coats galloped frantic-
ally, there was an onslaught on the " Derby dog, and an at-
tack by men, armed with the long wooden paddles which are
used for beating criminals, on inoffensive portions of the crowd.
It is said that there were 5,000 servants and officials con-
nected with the palace, and there were nominally 6,000 soldiers
in Seoul, and the greater part of tliese took part in the many
splendid processions which went to form the Royal procession.
It would be impossible for a stranger to give in detail the com-
ponent parts of such a show, the like of which has no existence
elsewhere on earth, passing for more than an hour in the bright
sunshine, in detachments, in compact masses, at a stately walk
or a rapid run, in the full spendor of a barbaric medievalism,

56 Korea and Her Neighbors

or to say what dignitaries flashed by in the kaleidoscopic blaze
of color.

The procession of the King was led by the '' general of the
vanguard," superbly dressed, supported by retainers on his led
pony, and followed by crowds of dignitaries, each with his
train, soldiers, men carrying aloft frames of arrows, reaching
nearly across the road, and huge flags of silk brocade sur-
mounted by plumes of pheasant's feathers, servants in rows of
a hundred in the most delicate shades of blue, green, or mauve
silk gauze over white, halberdiers, grandees, each with a ret-
inue of bannermen, rows of royal bannermen carrying yellow
and blue silk flags emblazoned, cavalry men in imitation gold
helmets and mediaeval armor, and tiger hunters wearing coarse
black felt hats with conical crowns and dark blue coats, trail-
ing long guns. With scarcely a pause followed the President
of the Foreign Office, high above the crowd on a monocycle,
a black wheel supporting on two uprights a black platform,
carrying a black chair decorated with a leopard skin, the oc-
cupant of which was carried by eight men at a height of 8
feet from the ground. More soldiers, bannermen, and drum-
mers, and then came the chief of the eunuchs, grandly dressed,
with an immense retinue, and a large number of his subordi-
nates, most of whom up to that time, by their position in the
palace and their capacity for intrigue, had exercised a very
baneful influence on Korean affairs.

The procession became more quaint and motley still. Palace
attendants appeared in the brilliant garments of the Korean
middle ages ; cavalry in antique armor were jumbled up with
cavalry in loose cotton frocks and baggy trousers, supposed to
be dressed and armed in European fashion, but I failed to de-
tect the flattery of imitation. There were cavalry in black
Tyrolese hats with pink ribbon round them, black cotton sacks
loosely girdled by leather belts with brass clasps never cleaned,
white wadded stockings, and hempen shoes. Some had leather
saddles, others rode on pack saddles, with the great pad which

The Kur-dong 57

should go underneath on the top; some held on to their saddles,
others to their rope bridles, the ponies of some were led by-
coolies in dirty white clothes; the officers were all held on
their saddles, many tucked their old-fashioned swords under
their arms, lest carrying them in regulation fashion should
make their animals kick ; the feet of some nearly touched the
ground, and those of others hung only halfway down their
ponies' sides; ponies squealed, neighed, reared, and jibbed,
but somehow or other these singular horsemen managed to
form ragged lines.

Then came foot soldiers with rusty muskets and innumer-
able standards, generals, court dignitaries, statesmen, some with
crimson hats with heavy black plumes, others with high peaked
crinoline hats with projecting wings, others with lofty mitres
covered with tinsel gleaming like gold, each with a splendid
train. Mediaeval costumes blazing with color flashed past,
there were more soldiers, and this time they carried Snider
rifles, two Gatling guns were dragged \)y yamen runners, who
frantically spanked all and sundry with their paddles, drum-
mers beat their drums unmercifully, fifes shrieked, there were
more dignitaries with fairylike retinues in blue and green silk
gauze, the King's personal attendants in crowds followed in
yellow, with bamboo hats trimmed with rosettes, standard-
bearers came next, bearing the Royal standard, a winged tiger
rampant on a yellow ground, more flags and troops, and then
the curious insignia of Korean Royalty, including a monstrous
red silk umbrella, and a singular frame of stones. More gran-
dees, more soldiers, more musical instruments, and then come
the Royal chairs, the first, which was canopied with red silk,
being empty, the theory being that this was the more likely to
receive an assassin's blow. A huge trident was carried in front
of it. After this, borne high aloft by forty bearers clothed in
red, in a superb chair of red lacquer, richly tasselled and can-
opied, and with wings to keep off the sun, came the King,
whose pale, languid face never changed its expression as he

58 Korea and Her Neighbors

passed with all the dignity and splendor of his kingdom through
the silent crowd.

More grandees, servants, soldiers, standard-bearers, arrow-
men, officials, cavalry, and led horses formed the procession
of the Crown Prince, who was also carried in a red palanquin,
and looked paler and more impassive than his father. The
supply of officials seemed inexhaustible, for behind him came
a quarter of a mile of grandees in splendid costumes, with hats
decorated with red velvet and peacock's feathers, and throat
lashes of great amber beads, with all their splendid trains, foot-
men in armor bossed with large nails, drummers, men carry-
ing arrow frames and insignia on poles, then the *' general of
the rear guard" in a gleaming helmet and a splendid blue,
crimson, and gold uniform, propped up by retainers on his
handsome pony, more soldiers armed with old matchlock guns,
lastly men bearing arrow frames and standards, and with them
the barbaric and bizarre splendor of the Kiir-dong was over,
and the white crowd once more overflowed the mean street.
Quite late in the evening the Royal pageant returned by the
light of stationary torches, with lanterns of blue and crimson
silk undulating from the heads of pikes and bayonets.

This truly splendid display was estimated to cost $25,000 —
a heavy burden on the small resources of the kingdom. It is
only thus surrounded that the King ever appears in public, and
the splendor accentuates the squalor of the daily life of the
masses of the people in the foul alleys which make up most of
the city. It must be remembered that the people taking part
in the pageant are not men hired and dressed up by a cos-
tumier, but that they are actual Court officials and noblemen
in the dress of to-day, and that the weapons carried by the sol-
diers are those with which they are supposed to repel attack or
put down rebellion.

CHAPTER IV

SEOUL, THE KOREAN MECCA

FURTHER difficulties and delays, while they pushed my
journey into the interior into the hot weather, gave me
the advantage of learning a little about the people and the
country before starting. In one sense Seoul is Korea. Take
a mean alley in it with its mud-walled hovels, deep-eaved brown
roofs, and malodorous ditches with their foulness and green
slime, and it may serve as an example of the street of every
village and provincial town. In country places there are few
industrial specialties. A Seoul shop of "assorted notions"
represents the shop of every country town. The white cloth-
ing and the crinoline dress hat are the same everywhere as in
Seoul. Whatever of national life there is exists only in the
capital. Strong as is the drift towards London in our own agri-
cultural districts, it is stronger in Korea towards Seoul. Seoul
is not only the seat of government, but it is the centre of official
life, of all official employment, and of the literary examina-
tions which were the only avenues to employment. It is always
hoped that something may be " picked up " in Seoul. Hence
there is a constant permanent or temporary gravitation towards
it, and the larger proportion of the youths who swing and
lounge on sunny afternoons along the broad streets, aping the
gait of yang-bans, are aspirants for official position. Gusts of
popular feeling which pass for public opinion in a land where
no such thing exists are known only in Seoul. It is in the
capital that the Korean feels the first stress of his unsought and
altogether undesired contact with Western civilization, and re-
sembles nothing so much as a man awaking from a profound

59

6o Korea and Her Neighbors

sleep, rubbing his eyes half-dazed and looking dreamily about
him, not quite sure where he is.

Seoul is also the commercial centre of a country whose ideas
of commerce are limited to huckstering transactions. All
business is done there. All country shops are supplied with
goods from Seoul. All produce not shipped from the treaty
ports converges on Seoul. It is the centre of the great trading
guilds, which exercise a practical monopoly in certain sorts of
goods, as well as of the guild of porters by whom the traffic
of the country is carried on. The heart of every Korean is in
Seoul. Officials have town houses in the capital, and trust
their business to subordinates for much of the year. Landed
proprietors draw their rents and "squeeze" the people on
their estates, but are absentees living in the capital. Every
man who can pay for food and lodging on the road trudges to
the capital once or twice a year, and people who live in it, of
whatever degree, can hardly be bribed to leave it even for a
few weeks. To the Korean it is the place in which alone life
is worth living.

Yet it has no objects of art, very few antiquities, no public
gardens, no displays except the rare one of the Kur-dong, and
no theatres. It lacks every charm possessed by other cities.
Antique, it has no ruins, no libraries, no literature, and lastly
an indifference to religion without a parallel has left it without
temples, while certain superstitions which still retain their hold
have left it without a tomb !

Leaving out the temple of Confucius and the homage offi-
cially rendered to his tablet in Korea as in China, there are no
official temples in Seoul, nor might a priest enter its gates un-
der pain of death, consequently the emphasis which noble re-
ligious buildings give even to the meanest city in China or
Japan is lacking. There is a small temple to the God of War
outside the south gate, with some very curious frescoes, but I
seldom saw any worshippers there. The absence of temples is
a feature of the other Korean cities. Buddhism, which for

D

O

w

o

w

H
H
D

o

Seoul, the Korean Mecca 6l

i,ooo years before the founding of the present dynasty was the
popular cult, has been " disestablished" and practically pro-
scribed since the sixteenth century, and Koreans account for
the severe enactments against priests by saying that in the Jap-
anese invasion three centuries ago Japanese disguised themselves
as Buddhist priests and gained admission to cities, putting their
garrisons to the sword. Be that true or false, Buddhism in
Korea to be found must be sought.

As there are no temples, so there are no other signs of re-
ligion, and the hasty observer would be warranted in putting
down the Koreans as a people without a religion. Ancestral
worship, and a propitiation of daemons or spirits, the result of
a timid and superstitious dread of the forces of Nature, are to
the Korean in place of a religion. Both, I am inclined to be-
lieve, are the result of fear, the worship of ancestors being dic-
tated far less by filial piety than by the dread that ancestral
spirits may do harm to their descendants. This cult prevails
from the King to the coolie. It inspires the costly splendors
of the Kur-dong, as well as the spread of ancestral food in the
humblest hovel on New Year's Eve.

The graves within an area of ten miles from the city wall
are among the remarkable features of this singular capital.
The dead have a monopoly of the fine hill slopes and southern
aspects. A man who when alive is content with a mud hovel
in a dingy alley, when dead must repose on a breezy hill slope
with dignified and carefully tended surroundings. The little
fine timber which exists in the denuded neighborhood of Seoul
is owed to the Royal and wealthy dead. The amount of good
land occupied by the dead is incredible. The grave of a mem-
ber of the Royal family on a hill creates a solitude for a con-
siderable distance around. In the case of rich and great men
as well as of princes, the grave is a lofty grassy mound, often
encircled by a massive stone railing, with the hill terraced in
front and excavated in a horseshoe shape behind. A stone
altar and stone lanterns are placed in front, and the foot of the

62 Korea and Her Neighbors

hill, as at the '^ Princess's Tomb," is often occupied by a tem-
ple-like building containing tablets with the name and rank of
the dead. The Royal tombs are approached by stately avenues
of gigantic stone figures, possibly a harmless survival of the
practice of offering human and other sacrifices at a burial.
These figures represent a priest, a warrior in armor, a servant,
a pony, and a sheep (?). The poorer dead occupy hillsides
in numbers, resting under grass mounds on small platforms of
grass always neatly kept. The lucky place for interment is in
all cases chosen by the geomancer. Behind rich men's graves
pines are usually planted in a crescent. The dead population
of the hillsides round Seoul is simply enormous.

Funerals usually go out near dusk with a great display of
colored lanterns, but I was fortunate enough to see an artisan's
corpse carried out by daylight. First came four drums and a
sort of fife perpetrating a lively tune as an accompaniment to
a lively song. These were followed by a hearse, if it may be
called so, a domed and gaudily painted construction with a
garland of artificial flowers in the centre of the dome, a white
Korean coat thrown across the roof, and four flagstaffs with
gay flags at the four corners, bamboo poles, flower-wreathed,
forming a platform on which the hearse was borne by eight
men in peaked yellow hats garlanded with blue and pink flow-
ers. Bouquets of the same were disposed carelessly on the
front and sides of the hearse, the latter being covered with
shield-shaped flags of gaudily colored muslin. The chief
mourner followed, completely clothed in sackcloth, wearing an
umbrella-shaped hat over 4 feet in diameter, and holding a sack-
cloth screen before his face by two bamboo handles. Men in
flower- wreathed hats surrounded him, some of them walking
backwards and singing. He looked fittingly grave, but it is a
common custom for those who attend the chief mourner to try
to make him laugh by comic antics and jocular remarks.
There are " burial clubs "in Seoul to which 100,000 cas/i are
contributed (then worth about thirty-three dollars, silver).

Seoul, the Korean Mecca 63

The first man to die receives 30,000 cash, the second 33,000,
and the third 37,000. This man had belonged to one of
these, which accounts for an artisan having such a handsome
funeral.

Mourners dress in straw-colored hempen cloth, and all wear
the enormous hats mentioned before, which so nearly conceal
the face that the carrying of the grass-cloth screen is almost
a work of supererogation. A mourner may not enter the pal-
ace grounds, and as mourning for a father lasts for three years,
a courtier thus bereaved is for that time withdrawn from
Court.

Among the curious customs mainly of Chinese origin con-
nected with death are the dressing the dying person in his best
clothes when death is very close at hand. The very poor are
buried coffinless in a wrapping of straw, and are carried by
two men on a bier, the nature of the burden being concealed
by hoops covered with paper.

When Buddhist priests and temples were prohibited in the
walled towns three centuries ago, anything like a national
faith disappeared from Korea, and it is only through ancestral
worship and a form of '' Shamanism " practiced by the lower
and middle classes that any recognition of the unseen survives,
and that is in its most superstitious and rudimentary form.
Protestant Christian missionaries, preceded in 1784 by those of
the Roman Catholic Church, entered Korea in 1884, almost as
soon as the country was opened by treaty, and agents of the
American Methodist Episcopal and Northern Presbyterian
Churches took up their abode in Seoul. They have been fol-
lowed by representatives of several of the divisions among
Protestants — Southern Presbyterians, Canadian Presbyterians,
Australian Presbyterians, and Baptists — and in 1890 the first
English mission to Korea was founded under Bishop Corfe. A
Roman Catholic Church and a very large Roman Catholic
Cathedral with a spire occupy two of the most prominent sites
in Seoul. One of the best sites is covered with the buildings

64 Korea and Her Neighbors

belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Mission, schools for girls
and boys, a printing press, a Union Church, and hospitals for
men and women, with which dispensaries are connected. The
girls' school connected with this mission is one of the most
admirable in its organization and results that I have seen. The
Presbyterians occupy a lowlier position, but have the same
class of agencies at work, and lately the King handed over to
them a large hospital in the city, known as the " Government
Hospital."

Bishop Corfe's mission occupies two modest sites in modest
fashion, all its buildings being strictly Korean. On one side
of Seoul, at Nak-tong, it has the Community House, where the
bishop, clergy, doctor, and printer live and have their private
chapel, also the Mission press, and a very efficient hospital for
men, admirably nursed by the Sisters of St. Peter's Kilburn.
On the slope of the British Legation Hill are the English
Church of the Advent, a beautiful Korean building, the Com-
munity House of the Sisters of St. Peter, and the Women's
Hospital buildings, embracing a dispensary, a new hospital
(the Dora Bird Memorial) of eighteen beds, with a room for a
private patient, besides an old hospital, to be used only for in-
fectious diseases. These are under the charge of a lady phy-
sician, and are also nursed by the Sisters of St. Peter, who in
both hospitals do admirable work in a bright and loving spirit
which is beyond all praise.

There are about 75 Protestant and 34 Roman missionaries in
Korea, mostly in Seoul. The language has the reputation of
being very difficult, and few of this large number have acquired
facility in the use of it. The idea of a nation destitute of a
religion, and gladly accepting one brought by the foreigner,
must be dropped. The religion the Korean would accept is
one which would show him how to get money without working
for it. The indifference is extreme, the religious faculty is
absent, there are no religious ideas to appeal to, and the moral
teachings of Confucius have little influence with any class.

Seoul, the Korean Mecca 65

The Korean has got on so well without a religion, in his own
opinion, that he does not want to be troubled with one, spe-
cially a religion of restraint and sacrifice which has no worldly-
good to offer. After nearly twelve years of work, the number
of baptized native Protestant Christians in 1897 was 777.^
The Roman Catholics claim 28,802, and that the average rate
of increase is 1,000 a year.^ Their priests live mostly in the
wretched hovels of the people, amidst their foul surroundings,
and share their unpalatable food and sordid lives. Doubtless,
mission work in Korea will not differ greatly from such work
elsewhere among the older civilizations. Barriers of indiffer-
ence, superstition, and inertness exist, and whatever progress
is made will probably be chiefly through medical missions,
showing Christianity in action, and native agency, and through
such schools as I have already alluded to, which leave every
feature of Korean custom, dress, and manner of living un-
touched, while Christian instruction and training are the first
objects, and where the gentle, loving, ennobling influence of
the teacher is felt during every hour of the day.

1 In 1897 the influence of Christianity was much stronger than in 1895,
and the prospects of its spread much more encouraging.

2 For statistics of Missions in February, 1897, see Appendix.

CHAPTER V

THE SAILING OF THE SAMPAN

AT a point when the difficulties in the way of my pro-
jected journey had come to be regarded as insurmount-
able, owing to the impossibility of getting an interpreter, and
I had begun to say " if I go " instead of *' ivhen I go," Mr.
Miller, a young missionary, offered his services, on condition
that he might take his servant to supplement his imperfect
knowledge of Korean. Bishop Corfe provided me with a
Chinese servant, Wong, a fine, big, cheery fellow, with inex-
haustible good-nature and contentment, never a cloud of an-
noyance on his face, always making the best of everything,
ready to help every one, true, honest, plucky, passionately
fond of flowers, faithful, manly, always well and hungry, and
with a passable knowledge of English ! He was a Chefoo saiti-
pan-vc\2A\ when Bishop Corfe picked him up, and nothing could
make him into a regular servant, but he suited me admirably,
and I was grieved indeed when I had to part with him.

The difficulty about money which then beset every traveller
in the interior cost a good deal of anxious planning. The
Japanese ye7i and its subdivisions were only current in Seoul
and the treaty ports, there were no bankers or money-changers
anywhere, and the only coin accepted was the cash, of which
at that time 3,200 nominally went to the dollar. This coin is
strung in hundreds on straw strings, and the counting of it,
and the carrying of it, and the being without it are all a
nuisance. It takes six men or one pony to carry 100 yen in
cash, £10 \ Travellers, through their Consuls, can obtain
from the Foreign Office a letter to officials throughout the
country called a kwan-ja, entitling the bearer to their good

66

iS

The Sailing of the Sampan 67

offices, and especially to food, transport, and money. But as
it usually happens that a magistrate advancing money to a for-
eigner is not repaid by the Government, however accurately
the sum has been paid in Seoul, the arrangement is a very
odious one to officials, and I promised our Consul that I would
not make use of it for money. Consequently, the boat which
I engaged for the earlier part of the journey was ballasted with
cash, and I took a bag of silver yen, and trusted to my usual
good fortune, which in this case did not altogether fail.

In addition to this uncouth and heavy burden, I took a
saddle, a trestle-bed with bedding and mosquito net, muslin
curtains, a folding chair, two changes of clothing, Korean
string shoes, and a " regulation " waterproof cloak. Besides,
I took green tea, curry powder, and 20 Ihs. of flour. I dis-
carded all superfluities, such as flasks, collapsing cups, hand
mirrors, teapots, sandwich tins, lamps, and tinned soups,
meats, bouillon, and fruits. The kitchen equipment con-
sisted of a Japanese brazier for charcoal, a shallow Japanese
pan and frying-pan, and a small kettle, with charcoal tongs,
the whole costing under two dollars ! The '* table equip-
ment " was limited : a small mug, two plates and a soup plate,
all in enamelled iron, and a knife, fork, and spoon, which
folded up, a knife, fork, and spoon of common make being
reserved for the "kitchen." Tables, trays, tablecloths, and
sheets were from thenceforth unknown luxuries. I mention
my outfit, because I know it to be a sufficient one, and that
every pound of superfluous weight adds to the difficulty of get-
ting transport in Korea and in many other countries. Besides,
I was encumbered for the first time with a tripod camera
weighing 16 lbs., and a hand camera weighing 4 fts., with
the apparatus belonging to them, and had to reduce other
things accordingly. On the whole, it is best to trust to the
food of the country. Korea produces eggs, and in some re-
gions chickens. The chestnuts are good, and though the flour,
which can be got in a few places, is gritty, and the rice is a

68 Korea and Her Neighbors

bad color, both are eatable, and the foreigner, always an ob-
ject of suspicion, is less so when he buys and eats native
viands, and does not carry about with him a number of (to
Koreans) outlandish-looking utensils and commodities.

Regarding much of the region which I purposed to visit no
information could be obtained, either from Europeans or
Korean officials, and the best map, a reduction of a Japanese
map by Sir E. Satovv, turned out to be astray. Mr. Warner,
of Bishop Corfe's Mission, had ascended the north branch of
the Han, but it is still doubtful whether any European has
been up the south and much larger branch which I explored
on this journey. It was certain only that the country was
mountainous, and that the rapids were numerous and severe.
It had also been said earnestly, and with an appearance of
knowledge, by several people that it would be impossible for a
lady to travel in the interior ; and certainly much of what I
heard, supposing it to be fact, was sufficiently deterring, but
from many similar statements in other countries I knew that a
deduction of at least fifty per cent, must be made !

On the 14th of April, 1894, when the environs of Seoul were
seen through a mist of green, and plum and peach blossom
was in the ascendant, and the heliotrope azalea was just begin-
ning to tint the hillsides, and the air was warm and muggy, I
left the kind friends who had done much to make my visit to
Seoul interesting and agreeable, and went on ponyback through
the south gate, passing the temple of the God of War, and
over a pine-clothed ridge of Nam-San to Han Kang, four miles
from Seoul, a little shipping village, where my boat lay, to
avoid a rapid which lies between it and Ma-pu. Up to Ma-pu,
56 miles from Chemulpo, there is a very considerable tidal
rise and fall which ceases at the rapid.

A limp, silent crowd of men and boys denoted the where-
abouts of the boat, from which Mr. Miller's servant, Che-on-i,
emerging with the broad smile with which Orientals announce
bad news, informed us that the boat was too small ! There

The Sailing of the Sampan 69

were very few to be got, and I had not seen this one, Mr.
Wyers, the Legation constable, having engaged her for me;
and I went " on board " at once, with much curiosity, as she
was to be my home for an indefinite number of weeks. And
small she truly was, only 28 feet over all, by 4 feet 10 inches
at her widest part, and with her whole cargo, animate and in-
animate, on board she only drew 3 inches of water. The
roof which was put on at my request was a marvel. A slight
framework of a ridge pole and some sticks precariously tied
together supported some mats of pheasant grass, with the long
blades hanging down outside and over the gunwale, which was
only 12 inches high. These mats were tied together over the
ridge pole, and let in a streak of daylight all the way along.
At its highest part this roof was only 4 feet 6 inches. It was
just possible to sit under it without stooping. By putting
forked sticks under what by courtesy were called the rafters,
they could be lifted a foot from the gunwale to let in light and
air. Two or three times in a strong breeze this roof collapsed
and fell about our heads !

In the fore part of the boat, 7 feet long, one boatman pad-
dled or poled, and in the hinder part, 4 feet long, the other
poled or worked an oar. But the fore part was also our
kitchen and poultry yard and the boatmen's kitchen. There
also were kept faggots, driftwood, and miscellaneous stores,
with the food and water in unappetizing proximity. There,
too, Wong and Che-on-i spent their day ; and there they all
cooked, ate, and washed clothes ; and there at night the boat-
men curled themselves up and slept in a space 4 feetX4.
The rest of the sampan divided itself naturally by the thwarts.
My part, the centre, was originally 8 feet X 4 feet 10 inches,
but encroachments by no means gradual constituted it a " free
coup" for sacks, rice-bags, clothing, and baskets, till it wns
reduced to a bare 6 feet, into which space my bed, chair, sad-
dle, and luggage were packed for five weeks. In the hinder
division, 7 feetX4 feet 4 inches, Mr. Miller lived and studied.

70 Korea and Her Neighbors

and he, Wong, and Che-on-i slept. It was scarcely possible
for six people and their gear to be more closely packed. Mr.
Miller, though not an experienced traveller, cheerfully made
the best of everything then and afterwards, and preserved the
serenity of his temper under all circumstances.

The sampan's crew of two consisted of Kim, her owner, a
tall wiry, picturesque, aristocratic-looking old man, and his
"hired man," who was never heard to speak except on two
occasions, when, being very drunk, he developed a remarkable
loquacity. On the whole, they were well behaved and quiet.
I saw them in close proximity every hour of the day and was
never annoyed by anything they did. Kim was paid ^30 per
month for the boat, and his laziness was wonderful. To
dawdle along, to start late and tie up early, to crawl when he
tracked, and to pole or paddle with the least expenditure of
labor, was his policy. To pole for an hour, then tie up and
take a smoke, to spend half a day now and then on buying
rice, to work on my sensibilities by feigning exhaustion, and
to adopt every dodge of the lazy man, was his practice. The
contract stipulated for three men, and he only took one, mak-
ing some evasive excuse. But I have said the worst I can say
when I write that they never made more than 10 miles in a
day, and often not more than 7, and that when they came to
severe rapids they always wanted to go back.^

Mr. Wyers busied himself in putting a mat on the floor and
stowing things as neatly as possible, and when curtains had
been put up, the quarters, though "■ cribbed, cabined, and con-
fined," looked quite tolerable. The same limp, silent crowd
looked on till we left Han Kang at midday. In a few hours
things shook into shape, and after all the discomforts were not
great, possibly the greatest being that the smoke and the smell
of the boatmen's malodorous food blew through the boat.

1 I took very careful notes on the Han, but as minute details would be
uninteresting to the general reader, and would involve a good deal of ap-
parent repetition, I shall give only the most salient features of a journey
which, if it has ever been made, has certainly not been described.

CHAPTER VI

ON THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND

DURING the five weeks which I spent on the Han, though
the routine of daily life varied little, there was no monot-
ony. The country and the people were new, and we mixed
freely, almost too freely, with the latter ; the scenery varied
hourly, and after the first few days became not only beautiful,
but in places magnificent, and full of surprises ; the spring
was in its early beauty, and the trees in their first vividness of
green, red, and gold ; the flowers and flowering shrubs were
in their glory, the crops at their most attractive stage, birds
sang in the thickets, rich fragrant odors were wafted off on
the water, red cattle, though rarely, fed knee-deep in abounding
grass, and the waters of the Han, nearly at their lowest, were
clear as crystal, and their broken sparkle flashed back the sun-
beams which passed through a sky as blue as that of Tibet.
There was a prosperous look about the country too, and its
security was indicated by the frequent occurrence of solitary
farms, with high secluding fences, standing under the deep
shade of fine walnut and persimmon trees.

Unlike the bare, arid, denuded hillsides between Chemulpo
and Seoul, the slopes along much of the route are wooded,
and in many cases forested both with coniferae and deciduous
trees, among which there are occasionally picturesque clumps
of umbrella pines. The Pinus Si?iensis and the Abies Micros -
perma abound, and there are two species of oak and three of
maple, a Platanus, juniper, ash, mountain ash, birch, hazel,
Sophora Japonica, Eiionymus alatus, Thiija Oriefifalis, and
many others. The heliotrope, pink, and scarlet azaleas were
in all their beauty, flushing the hillsides, and white and sul-

71

72 Korea and Her Neighbors

phur-yellow clematis, actinidia, and a creeping Euo7iyinus
were abundant. Of the wealth of flowering shrubs, mostly
white blossomed, I had never seen one before either in garden
or greenhouse, except the familiar syringa and spirea. The
beautiful Ampelopsis Veitchiana was in its freshest spring green
and tender red, concealing tree trunks, depending from
branches, and draping every cliff and rock with its exquisite
foliage; and roses, red and white, of a free-growing, climb-
ing variety, having possession even of tall trees, hung their
fragrant festoons over the roads.

It was all very charming, though a little wanting in life.
True, there were butterflies and dragon-flies innumerable, and
brilliant green and brown snakes in numbers, and at first the
Han was cheery with mallard and mandarin- duck, geese and
common teal. In the rice fields the imperial crane, the egret,
and the pink ibis with the deep flush of spring on his plum-
age, were not uncommon, and peregrines, kestrels, falcons,
and buzzards were occasionally seen. But the song-birds were
it"^. The forlorn note of the night-jar was heard, and the
loud, cheerful call of the gorgeous ringed pheasant to his
dowdy mate; but the trilling, warbling, and cooing which are
the charm of an English copsewood in springtime are alto-
gether absent, the chatter of the blue magpie and the noisy
flight of the warbler being poor substitutes for that entrancing
concert. Of beast life, undomesticated, there were no traces,
and the domestic animals are few. Sheep do not thrive on
the sour natural grasses of Korea, and if goats are kept I never
saw any. A small black pig not much larger than a pug is
universal, and there are bulls and ponies about the better class
of farms. There are big buff dogs, but these are kept only to
a limited extent on the Han, in the idea that they attract the
nocturnal visits of tigers. The dogs are noisy and voluble,
and rush towards a stranger as if bent on attack ; but it is
mere bravado — they are despicable cowards, and run away
howling at the shaking of a stick.

On the River of Golden Sand 73

Leopards, antelopes, and several species of deer are found
among the mountains bordering the Han, but the beast by pre-
eminence there, as throughout Korea, is the tiger. At first I
was very incredulous regarding his existence and depredations.
It was impossible to believe that peaceful agricultural valleys
surrounded by hills, thinly clothed with dwarf oak scrub,
could be ravaged by him, that dogs, pigs, and cattle are con-
tinually carried off by him, and that human beings visiting
each other at night or belated on the roads are his frequent
prey. But the constant repetition of tiger stories, the terror
of the villagers, the refusal of mapu and coolies to travel after
dark, the certainty that in several places the loss of life had
been recent, and that even in the trim settlement of Won-san
a boy and child had been seized the day before I arrived and
had been eaten on the hillside above the town, have made me
a believer. Possibly some of the depredations attributed to
tigers may be really the work of leopards, which undoubtedly
abound, and have been shot even within the walls of Seoul.
High up tlie Han, in a very lovely lake-like stretch, there is a
village recently deserted because of the persistency with which
tigers had carried of its inhabitants. The Korean tiger, judg-
ing from its skin, in which the long hair grows out of a thick
coat of fine fur, resembles the Manchurian tiger. I have
heard of one which measured 13 feet 4 inches, but never saw
a skin more than 11 feet 8 inches in length.

The tiger-hunters form what may be called a brigade or
corps, and may be called on for military service. They were
conspicuous objects in the Ktir-dong^ with their long match-
lock guns, loose blue uniforms, and conical-crowned, broad-
brimmed hats. The tiger appears on the Royal standard, and
tigers' skins are the insignia of high office, the leopard skins, in-
dicating lower rank. Tlie Chinese give a very high price for
tigers' bones as a medicine, considering them a specific for
strength and courage. Tiger-hunting as a business seems con-
fined to the northern provinces. On the Han, and specially

74 Korea and Her Neighbors

along its northern affluents, are found three if not four species
of deer, and the horns, in the velvet, of the large deer {^Cervus
Manchuricus), which fetch from forty to sixty dollars a pair,
are the prize most wanted by the hunters. Pheasants are lit-
erally without number and are very tame ; I constantly saw
them feeding among the crops within a few yards of the peas-
ants at their work. They are usually brought down by falcons,
which, when well trained, command as high a price as nine
dollars. To obtain them three small birds are placed in a
cylinder of loosely woven bamboo, mounted horizontally on a
pole. On the peregrine alighting on this, a man who has been
concealed throws a net over the whole. The bird is kept in a
tight sleeve for three days. Then he is daily liberated in a
room, and trained to follow a piece of meat pulled over the
floor by a string. At the end of a week he is taken out on
his master's wrist, and slipped when game is seen. He is not
trained to return. The master rushes upon him and secures
him before he has time to devour the bird. A man told me
that he sometimes got between twenty and thirty pheasants a
day, but had to walk or run loo // to do it. The season was
nearly over, yet I. bought fine pheasants on the Han for three-
pence and fourpence each. They were cheaper than chickens.
The Han itself, rising in the Diamond Mountain of Kong-
w6n-Do, and formed by a number of nearly parallel affluents,
next to the border river Am-nok, is ///<? river of Korea, which
it cuts nearly across, its eastern extremity being within 25
miles of the Sea of Japan and its western at Chemulpo. I as-
cended it to within 40 miles of the Sea of Japan, and estimate
the length of its navigable waters for small flat-bottomed craft
at about 170 miles. A clear bright stream with a bottom of
white sand, golden gravel or rock, chiefly limestone, with an
average width of 250 yards well sustained to the head of navi-
gation, narrowed at times by walls of rock or divided by grassy
islands in its lower course, full of pebbly shallows, over which
it ripples gaily, its upper waters abounding in rocky rapids,

On the River of Golden Sand 75

many of them severe and dangerous, its most marked features,
to my thinking, are its absence of affluents after it emerges
from the Diamond Mountain, and its singular alternations of
shallow with very deep water. It was a common occurrence
to have to drag my boat, drawing only 3 inches, through water
too shallow to float her, and at the top of the ripple to come
upon a broad, still, lake-like, deep, green expanse, 20 feet
deep, continuing for a mile or two.

After passing the forks there are 46 rapids, many of them
very severe, before reaching Yong-Chhun, which for practical
purposes may be regarded as the limit of navigable water.

These are a most serious obstacle in the way of navigation,
but as there is usually a deep water channel in the middle,
sailing junks of 25 tons, taking advantage of strong, favorable
winds, get up as far as Tan-Yang. Beyond, boats not twice
the size of my sampan must be used, which are only poled and
dragged, and as they must keep near the shore, among rocks
and furious water, their progress is very slow, not more than 7
miles a day. Nevertheless, the Han, with all its difficulties
and obstructions, is the great artery of communication for
much of Kong-w6n-Do and Kyong-Kivi Do, and for the north-
east portion of Chung-Chong Do ; down it all the excess pro-
duce of this great region goes to Seoul, and nearly all merchan-
dise, salt, and foreign goods come up it from the sea-board,
to pass into the hands of the posa?ig, or merchant pedlars, at
various points, and through them to reach the market-places
of the interior. During the first ten days from Han Kang
there were 75 junks a day on an average bound up and down
stream. There is a very large floating population on the Han.
There is not a bridge along its whole length, but communica-
tion is kept up by 47 free ferries, provided by Government.

Not having been able to learn anything about the route or
any of its features, I was much surprised to find a very large
population, not only along the river, but in the parallel valleys,
many of them of great length and extreme fertility, in its

^6 Korea and Her Neighbors

neighborhood. It was only necessary to climb a ridge or hill
to see numbers of these, given up to rice culture, and thickly
sprinkled with farming villages. Along the river banks only,
between Han Kang and Yong-Chhun, there are 176 villages.
Much of the soil is rich alluvium, from 5 to 11 feet deep, and
most prolific, bearing two heavy crops a year (not rice lands)
with little or no manure. There is on the whole an air of
greater ease and prosperity about the Han valley than about
any other region that I have seen in Korea. ^

The people are of fine physique and generally robust appear-
ance. Some of them had evidently attained great age. There
were a few sore eyes and some mild skin diseases, both pro-
duced by dirt, but there were no sickly-looking people; in-
fants abounded.

Except for a monastery and temple, both Buddhist, not far
from Seoul, and the Confucian temples at the magistracies,
there were no signs of any other cult than that of daemons.
There were two shrines containing 7nirioks, in both cases
water-worn boulders chafed into some resemblance to human-
ity; spirit shrines on heights; and under large trees heaps of
stones sacred to daemons ; tall posts, with the tops rudely cut
into something suggestive of distorted human faces, painted
black and blue, with straw ropes with dependent straw tassels,
like those denoting Shinto shrines in Japan, stretched across
the road to prevent the ingress of malignant spirits, and trees
with many streamers of rag, as well as worn-out straw shoes
hanging in their branches, as offerings to these beings.

' I am inclined to think that Europeans habitually underestimate the
population. The average I obtained is 8 to a house, taking 70 houses at
random, and this estimate is borne out by General Greathouse, for some
years in Korean Government service, and Mr. Moffett, a resident and
traveller in Korea for seven years, both of whom have given some atten-
tion to the subject. It must be understood that a Korean household
rarely, if ever, consists of a man, wife and children only ; there are par-
ents and relationly hangers-on, to say nothing of possible servants.

On the River of Golden Sand 77

The dwellings do not vary much, except that the roofs of
the better class are tiled. In villages where there is a resident
yang-ban or squire-noble, his house is usually pretentious, and
covers a considerable area, but yields in stateliness to the
family tomb, always on a hill slope, a great grass mound on a
grass platform backed by horseshoe-shaped grass banks, and
usually by a number of fine pines. In front of the mound is
invariably a stone altar on two stone drums, stone posts which
support the canopy used when sacrifices are offered to the
spirit of the deceased, and stone lanterns. A few of the
grander tombs are approached by a short avenue of stone fig-
ures of warriors, horses, servants, and sheep. ^

The peasant's houses do not differ from those of the poorer
classes in Seoul. The walls are of mud, and the floors, also of
mud, are warmed by a number of flues, the most economical
of all methods of heating, as the quantity of dried leaves and
weeds that a boy of ten can carry keeps two rooms above 70°
for twelve hours. Every house is screened by a fence 6 feet
high of bamboo or plaited reeds, and is usually surrounded by
fruit trees. In one room are ang-pak, great earthenware jars
big enough to contain a man, in which rice, millet, barley, and
water are kept. That is frequently in small houses the
women's room. The men's room has little in it but the mat
on the floor, pillows of solid wood, and large red and green
hat-cases ranging from the rafters, in which the crinoline dress
hats are stowed away. Latticed and paper-covered doors and
windows denote a position above that of the poorest. A pig-
stye, much more substantial than the house, is always along-
side of it.

The villages from about 50 // up the Han from Seoul may
all be described as *' farming villages." Lower down they
export large quantities of firewood and charcoal for the daily

1 Such figures where they occur are always spoken of by foreigners as
sheep, but I doubt whether this animal appears at any but royal tombs,
where it is probably represented as offered in sacrifice by the King.

yS Korea and Her Neighbors

needs of a capital which has left itself without a stick available
for fuel in its immediate neighborhood. No special industries
exist. The peasants make their rude wooden ploughs and
spades shod with iron, and two villages within 40 // of Seoul
supply them with their ang-paks and culinary utensils of the
same coarse ware, which stands fire and serves instead of iron
pots. Such iron utensils as are used are imported from Seoul
along with salt, and foreign piece goods for dress clothes, and
are paid for with rice, grain, and tobacco.

The people are peasant farmers in the strictest sense, most
of them holding their lands from \\-\t yang-ba7is at their pleas-
ure. The proprietor has the right to turn them out after har-
vest, but it does not seem to be very oppressively exercised.
He provides the seed, and they pay him half the yield. Some
men buy land and obtain title-deeds. In 1894 they paid in
taxes on one day's ploughing, so much for barley, beans, rice,
and cotton, the sum varying; but a new system of collecting
tax on the assessed value of the land has come into operation,
which renders "squeezing" on the part of the tax collector
far more difficult. Money is scarcely current, business trans-
actions are by barter, or the peasant pays with his labor. His
chief outlay is on foreign piece cottons for his best clothes.
These are 30 cash per measure of 20 inches, dearer at Yong-
Wol, the reputed head of navigation, than at Seoul.

The population of the Han valley is not poor, if by poverty
is to be understood scarcity of the necessaries of life. The
people have enough for themselves and for all and sundry who,
according to Korean custom, may claim their hospitality.
Probably they are all in debt ; it is very rare indeed to find a
Korean who has not this millstone round his neck, and they
are destitute of money or possessions other than those they ab-
solutely require. They appear lazy. I then thought them so,
but they live under a regime under which they have no security
for the gains of labor, and for a man to be reported to be
** making money," or attaining even the luxury of a brass din-

On the River of Golden Sand 79

ner service, would be simply to lay himself open to the rapa-
cious attentions of the nearest mandarin and his myrmidons,
or to a demand for a loan from an adjacent yang-ban. Never-
theless, the homesteads of the Han valley have a look of sub-
stantial comfort.

Certainly the meals of the men are taken in far greater tidi-
ness than is usual among laborers. The women, as is the
fashion with women, eat ''anyhow," and gobble up their
lords' leavings. All meals for men are served on small, circu-
lar, dark wooden tables, a few inches high, one for each per-
son. Rice is the staple of diet, and is served in a great bowl,
but besides this, there are seldom fewer than five or six glazed
earthenware vessels containing savory, or rather tasty, condi-
ments.^ Chop-sticks and small flattish spoons of horn or base
metal are used for eating.

In the villages, as distinguished from the hamlets, on the
Han there are schools, but they are not open to the public.
Families club together and engage a teacher, but the pupils are
only of the scholarly class, and only Chinese learning in
Wenli is taught, this being the stepping-stone to official posi-
tion, the object of the ambition of every Korean. En-itiim is
despised, and is not used as a written language by the educated
class. I observed, however, that a great many men of the
lower orders on the river were able to read their own script.

With the exception of two small Buddhist establishments
not far from Seoul, priests are non-existent on the Han, nor is
there any Christian propaganda, Protestant or Roman, at
work, though Roman missionaries were formerly stationed at
two points near the forks. Daemon worship prevails through-
out the whole region.

The river is frozen for from three to four months in the

winter, and tends to inundate the lower lands for two months

in the summer. The bridle tracks which skirt it and diverge

from it are infamous. The valley has no mails, and of course

> These remarks apply to every part of Korea which I afterwards saw.

8o Korea and Her Neighbors

no newspapers. The Tong-haks (rebels, or armed reformers)
were strong in a region immediately to the south of the great
bend, which showed some dissatisfaction with things as they
were, and a desire for reform in some minds.

So far as I could learn, the region is not rich in ordinary
minerals. I could hear nothing of ''the burning earth,"
though the geological formation renders its existence probable.
Copper and iron are worked not far from the north branch to
a limited extent. But the Han is the ''River of Golden
Sand," and though the height of the gold season is after the
summer rains, the auri sacra fames even then attracted gangs
of men to the river banks, and gold in the mountains was a
subject on which the Koreans were always voluble.

The attitude of the people was friendly. I never saw a
trace of actual hostility, though on the higher waters of the
south branch it was very doubtful whether they had seen a
European before. Their curiosity was naturally enormous,
and whenever the boat tied up for a day it showed itself by
crowds sitting on the bank as close to it as they could get, star-
ing apathetically. They were frequently timid, and snatched
up their fowls and hid them when we came in sight, but a lit-
tle friendly explanation of our honesty of purpose, and above
all, the sight of a few strings of cash, usually set everything
straight. A foreigner is absolutely safe. During the ofttimes
tedious process of hauling up the rapids, when Mr. Miller and
the servants were tugging at the ropes, I constantly strolled for
two or three hours by myself along the river bank, and
whether the path led through solitary places or through vil-
lages, I never met with anything more disagreeable than curi-
osity shown in a very ill-bred fashion, and that was chiefly on
the part of women. When the people understood that they
would be paid it was not difficult to procure the little they had
to sell at fairly reasonable rates. They were disposed to be
communicative, and showed very little suspicion, far less in-
deed than in parts of Korea where foreigners are common.

On the River of Golden Sand

8l

My Chinese servant was everywhere an object of most friendly
curiosity and a centre of pleasurable interest.

The mercury during April and May ranged from 42° to
72°, and the barometer showed remarkable steadiness. There
were two heavy rainfalls, but the weather on the whole was
superb, and the atmosphere clear and dry.

KOREAN PEASANTS AT DINNER.

CHAPTER VII

VIEWS AFLOAT

A FEW hours sufficed for settling in our very narrow-
quarters, and by the end of the second day we had
shaken down into an orderly routine. By dint of much driv-
ing Kim was induced to start about seven, at which hour I had
my flour and water stirabout. The halts for smoking, cook-
ing, and eating were many, and about five o'clock he used to
simulate exhaustion, a deception to which his lean form and
thin face with its straight straggling white hair lent themselves
effectively. Then followed the daily wrangle about the place
to tie up, Kim naturally desiring a village and the proximity
of junks, with much nocturnal smoking and gossip, while my
wish was for solitude, quiet, and a pebbly river bottom, and
with Mr. Miller's aid I usually carried my point. Between
Kim's laziness and the frequent occurrence of rapids, lo miles
came to be considered a good day's journey ! The same
rapids made any settled plan of occupation impossible, yet on
the early stages of the journey, when there were long quiet
stretches of water between them, it was pleasant to elev^ate
the roof and have a quiet morning's work till dinner at twelve.
This, it must be confessed, was a precarious meal. Chickens
for curry were not always attainable, and were often so small
as to suggest the egg shell, and the river fish which were some-
times got by pouncing on a boy fisherman were very minute
and bony. Chestnuts often eked out a very scanty meal.
Wong used to hunt along the river banks for wild onions and
carrots, after the stock of the cultivated roots was exhausted,
and he made paste of flour and water, rolled it with a bamboo

82

Views Afloat 83

on the top of a box, cut it into biscuits with the lid of a tin,
and baked them in the frying-pan. Rice fritters too he made
morning, noon, and night. Afternoon tea of Burrough's and
Wellcome's '* tabloids " was never omitted, and after tying up
came supper, an impoverished repetition of dinner, the whole
a wholesome regimen, invariably eaten with appetite.

Visiting villages and small towns, only to find the first a
collection of mud hovels, and the last mud hovels with the ad-
dition of ruinous official buildings and a forlorn Confucian
temple, climbing to ridges bordering the Han to get a view of
fertile and populous valleys, conversing with and interrogating
the people through Mr. Miller and his servant, taking geo-
graphical notes, temperatures, altitudes, barometric readings,
and measurements of the river (nearly all unfortunately lost in
a rapid on the downward journey), collecting and drying plants,
photographing, and developing negatives under difficulties, all
the blankets and waterproofs in the boat being requisitioned for
the creation of a "dark room" — all these occupations made
up busy and interesting days.

The first two days were spent in turning the flank of the
range on which is the so-called fortress of Nam Han, with its
priest soldiers, one of the four which are supposed to guard
Seoul and offer refuge in times of trouble. On the right bank
there are many villages of farmers, woodcutters, and charcoal
burners, and on the left an expanse of cultivated sandy soil be-
tween the mountains and the river, there a broad rapid stream
rippling brightly over white sand or golden gravel. After pass-
ing the Yang-kun magistracy, a large village with a long street,
where a whole fleet of sampans was loading with country pro-
duce for the capital, and a number of junks were unloading
salt, the Han makes a sharp bend to the south, and after a long
rapid expands into a very broad stream. The valley broadens
also, and becomes flat, the hills, absolutely denuded even of
scrub, are low, and recede from the river ; their serrated black
ridges of rock, and their deeply scored, corrugated, flushed

84 Korea and Her Neighbors

sides, which spring had scarcely tinged with green, are for-
bidding, and though the valley was green with young wheat,
that is quite the most monotonous and uninteresting part of the
journey.

After circumventing the fine fortress summit of Nam Han,
the river enters the mountains. From that time up to the
head of possible navigation, the scenery in its variety, beauty,
and unexpectedness exhausts the vocabulary of admiration.

A short distance above Han Kang is the Buddhist temple,
of Ryeng-an Sa, dedicated to the Dragon, one of the two
Buddhist sanctuaries on the long course of the Han. On the
left bank a low stone wall encloses a spot on which a female
dragon alighted from heaven in the days of the last dynasty,
and where still, in times of flood or drought, sacrifices are
offered and libations poured out to ''Heaven." The only
other temple is that of Pyok-chol on the right bank of the Han,
above Yo Ju, four days from Seoul. A steep wooded prom-
ontory projects into the still, deep, green water, crowned
with two brick and stone pagodas. In a wooded dell at the
back there are some picturesque and elaborately carved and
painted temples and monastic buildings, and a fine bell five
centuries old, surmounted by an entanglement of dragons,
which, with some medallions on the sides, are of very bold de-
sign and successful workmanship, and the whole is said to have
been cast in Chung-Chong Do before the Japanese stole the
arts and artists ! A pavilion for the temple dramas was occu-
pied for the afternoon by a large picnic of women and children
from Y6 Ju. In one of the monastic courts there is a marble
pagoda with some finely executed bas-reliefs on its sides,
claiming a not distant kinship with those of the "marble
pagoda" in Seoul. The establishment consisted of an abbot,
nineteen monks, and four novices. The abbot was the most
refined, intellectual, and aristocratic looking man that I saw in
Korea, with an innate courtesy and refinement of manner rare
anywhere. He carried the weight of seventy years with much

Views Afloat 85

grace and dignity, and niade us cordially welcome. This was
the last we saw of Buddhism till we reached the Diamond
Mountain six weeks later.

At the village of Tomak-na-dali, where we tied up, they
make the great purple-black jars and pots which are in univer-
sal use. Their method is primitive. They had no objection
to be watched, and were quite communicative. The potters
pursue their trade in open sheds, digging up the clay close by.
The stock-in-trade is a pit in which an uncouth potter's wheel
revolves, the base of which is turned by the feet of a man who
sits on the edge of the hole. A wooden spatula, a mason's
wooden trowel, a curved stick, and a piece of rough rag are
the tools, efficient for the purpose. Fifty // higher up, a few //
from the river, are beds of kaolin used in the Government
pottery and for the finer kinds of porcelain.

For two days the Han was about 400 yards wide, with a very
tortuous course, abounding in rapids, shallows, and green
islands, with great expanses of pure white sand on its left
bank, and frequent villages of woodcutters and charcoal burn-
ers on both. On the i6th we reached the forks at the village
of Ma-chai. There the north branch, which was to be after-
wards traversed, comes down, and the south branch, in every
way more important, arrives from the southward. Between
the two there is a pretty wooded island then pink with azalea
blossom. Beyond is a fine stretch of alluvium, nearly 6 feet
deep, bearing rich crops of barley and wheat, but entirely un-
protected from the desolations of the river in its annual rise,
which engulfs every year acres of this prolific soil. Ten years
ago the Han, altering its course, brought down from the top of
a steep bank at some distance a hugh concrete double coffin 9
feet long and 16 inches thick ! The great alluvial expanse was
make over to the Buddhists by the King, who receives annually
a fixed amount of the produce.

Between Kim's laziness and plausibility, and the rapids,
which though not severe were frequent, and the food hunt,

86 Korea and Her Neighbors

which was a necessity, our progress was slow, and it was not
till the 19th of April that we reached Yo Ju, the first town of
any importance and the birthplace of the late Queen. It is
memorable to me as being the first place where the crowd was
obstreperous and obnoxious, though not hostile. It is humili-
ating to be a "show " and to get nothing by it ! I went out
on a rock in the river in the hope of using the prismatic com-
pass in peace, and was nearly pushed into the water, and \vhen
I went up into the gate tower a stamping, curious crowd, climb-
ing on everything that afforded a point of vantage, shook the
old fabric so severely that the delicately balanced needle never
came to rest. The crowd was dirty, the streets were foul and
decayed, and worst of all was the magistrate's j^w*?;^, to which
we had occasion to go, and where I found that a kwan-ja was
powerless to obtain even common civility.

The yameUy though finely situated and enclosing in its
grounds a large and much decorated pavilion for Royal use,
but used as a children's playground, was in a state of wreck.
The woodwork was crumbling, beams and rafters were falling
down, lacquer and paint were scaling off, torn paper fluttered
from the lattice windows, plaster hung from the grimy walls,
the once handsome gate tower was on its last legs, in the court-
yard some flagstones had subsided, others were exalted, and
audacious ragweed and shepherd's purse grew in their crevices.
Poverty, neglect, and melancholy reigned supreme. Within
the gates were plenty of those persons who suck the lifeblood
of Korea. There were soldiers in Tyrolese hats and coarse
cotton uniforms in which blue predominated, yamen runners
in abundance, writers, officers of ///justice, messengers pre-
tending to have business on hand, and many small rooms, in
which were many more men sitting on the floor smoking long
pipes, with writing materials beside them.

One attendant, by no means polite, took my kwan-ja to the
magistrate, and very roughly led the way to two small rooms,
in the inner one of which the official was seated on the floor.

Views Afloat 87

surrounded by a few elderly men. We were directed to stand
at the opening between the two rooms, and behind us pressed
as many of the crowd as could get in. I bowed low. No no-
tice was taken. An attendant handed the magistrate a pipe,
so long that it would have been impossible for him to light it
for himself, and he smoked. Mr. Miller hoped that he was in
good health. No reply, and the eyes were never raised. Mr.
Miller explained the object of the visit, which was to get a lit-
tle information about the neighborhood. There was only a
very curt reply, and as the great man turned to one of his sub-
ordinates and began to talk to him, and rude remarks were cir-
culating, we took leave with the usual Korean phrases of po-
liteness, which were not reciprocated.

We were told that there are many '*high yang-hans'^ in
Y6 Ju, and it seemed natural that the magistrate of a town of
only 700 houses should not be a man of high rank. The story
goes that when he came they used " low talk " to him and or-
dered him about as their inferior. So he lives chiefly in Seoul,
and the man who sat in sordid state amidst the ruins of the
spacious and elaborately decorated yamen does his work and
divides the spoils, and the yang-bans are left to whatever their
devices may be. But this is not an isolated case. Nearly all
the river magistrates are mainly absentees, and spend their time,
salaries, and squeezings in the capital. I had similar inter-
views with three other magistrates. I asked nothing except
change in cash for three yen, and on each occasion was told
that the treasury was empty. My kwan-ja, a pompous doc-
ument from the Foreign Office, was of this use only, it pro-
cured me a chicken at a high price in a town where the people
were unwilling to sell !

At Yo Ju I saw for the only time either in Korea or China
the interior of an ancestral temple. It is a lofty building, with
a curved tile roof and blackwood ceiling, approached by a
roofed gateway. Opposite the entrance is an ebony stool, on
which are a brass bowl and incense burner. Above this is a

88 Korea and Her Neighbors

large altar, supporting two candlesticks with candles, and above
that again an ebony stand on which rests a polished black
marble tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased. Be-
hind that, in a recess in the wall, with elaborate fretwork
doors, is his life-sized portrait in Chinese style. The floor is
covered with plain matting. In the tablet the third soul of
the deceased is supposed to dwell. Food is placed before
it three times daily for three years in the case of a parent,
and there the relations, after the expiration of that period,
meet at stated seasons every year and offer sacrifice and
" worship."

At the large and prosperous-looking village of Chon-yaing
the people told us that a *' circus " was about to perform and
impelled us towards it ; but finding that it was in the court-
yard of a large tiled-roof mansion, in good repair and of much
pretension, we were retiring, when we were cordially invited
to enter, and I was laid hold of (literally) by the serving-
women and dragged through the women's court and into the
women's apartments. I was surrounded by fully forty women,
old and young, wives, concubines, servants, all in gala dress
and much adorned. The principal wife, a very young girl
wearing some Indian jewellery, was very pretty and had an
exquisite complexion, but one and all were destitute of man-
ners. They investigated my clothing, pulled me about, took
off my hat and tried it on, untwisted my hair and absorbed my
hairpins, pulled off my gloves and tried them on with shrieks
of laughter, and then, but not till they had exhausted all the
amusement which could be got out of me, they bethought
themselves of entertaining me by taking me through their
apartments, crowding upon me to such an extent as they did
so that I was nearly carried off my feet. They took me through
fourteen communicating rooms, with fine parquet floors, mostly
spoiled by being covered in whole or in part with Brussels
tapestry carpets of ''loud" and vulgar patterns in hideous
aniline dyes. Great mirrors in tawdry gilt frames glared from

Views Afloat 89

the tender coloring of the walls, and French clocks asserted
their expensive vulgarity in every room.

In the outer court a rope was stretched for the rope-dancers,
and kettledrums and reed-pipes gave promise of such music as
Koreans love. I was escorted across two other courts sur-
rounded by verandas supported on dressed stone, and with
iron railings instead of wood, to an elevated reception room,
where a foreign table and some tawdry velvet-covered chairs
clashed with the tastefulness of the walls and the fine mats
bordered with the Greek fret on the floor. French clocks, all
keeping different time, were much en evidence. The host, a
youth of eighteen, eldest son of the governor of one of the
most important governorships in Korea, welcomed us, and
seemed anxious to receive us courteously. Wine, soup, eggs,
and kimchi, an elaborate sort of '* sour kraut," were produced,
and had to be partaken of, our host meanwhile smoking an
expensive foreign cigar, which gave him an opportunity for
the ostentatious display of a showy diamond ring. He
was dressed in sea-green silk, and wore a hat of very fine
quality.

He wanted to see the inside of my camera and to be photo-
graphed, for which purpose we retired to the back of the
house to avoid the enormous crowd which had collected, and
which was becoming every moment more impolite and dis-
orderly. I made him exchange the foreign cigar, vulgar in a
Korean's mouth, for the national long pipe. At this juncture
some friends came up, hangers-on, who were feasting with him
to celebrate his having obtained a good place in a recent ex-
amination, and made a rudely-worded request for our immedi-
ate departure. It was obvious that, after their unmannerly
curiosity had been satisfied, our presence, and the courteous
treatment extended to us, spoilt their amusement. The ring-
leader spoke roughly to our host, who turned his back on us
and retired meekly to his own apartments, although he is a son
of an official of the highest rank, and a near relative of the

go Korea and Her Neighbors

late Queen. AVe could only make a somewhat ignominious
exit, having been truly ** played out."

This rage for French clocks, German mirrors, foreign cigars,
chairs upholstered in velvet, and a general foreign tawdriness
is spreading rapidly among the young "swells" who have
money to spend, vulgarizing Korean simplicity, and setting
the example to those below them of an extravagant and purely
selfish expenditure. The house, with its many courtyards, was
new and handsome, and money glared from every point. I
was glad to return to the simplicity of my boat, hoping that
with the " plain living, high thinking" might be combined !

Beyond the mountains east of Yo Ju, the Han passes
through a noble stretch of rich alluvium, bearing superb, and
fairly clean crops, and bordered by low, serrated, denuded,
and much corrugated ranges, faintly tinged with green. On
this gently rolling plain are many towns and villages, among
the larger of which are Won Ju, Chung Ju, Chong-phyong,
and Tan-Yang, all on or near the river, by which they con-
veniently export their surplus produce, chiefly beans, tobacco,
and rice, and receive in return their supplies of salt and for-
eign goods. Even at that season of low water the traffic was
considerable.

Higher up, the scenery changes. Lofty limestone bluffs,
often caverned, rise abruptly from the river, and wall in the
fertile and populous valleys which descend upon it, giving place
higher up to grand basaltic formation, range behind range,
terraces of columnar basalt occasionally appearing. It was a
lovely season, warm days, cold nights, brilliant sunshine,
great white masses of sunlit clouds on a sky of heavenly blue,
distances idealized in a blue veil which was not a mist, flowers
at their freshest, every bird that has a note or a cry vocal,
butterflies and red and blue dragon-flies hovering over the
grass and water, fish leaping, all nature awake and jubilant.
And every rift and bluif had its own beauty of blossoming
scarlet azaleas, or syringas, contorted or stately pines, and

Views Afloat

9>

Ampelopsis Veitchiaiia rose-pink in its early leafage. There
was a note of gladness in the air.

Eight days above Seoul, on the left bank of the river, there
is a ruinous pagoda built of large blocks of hewn stone, stand-
ing solitary in the centre of a level plain formed by a bend of
the Han. The people, on being asked about it, said, " When
Korea was surveyed so long ago that nobody knows when, this
was the centre of it." They call it the '' Halfway Place."
After that the only suggestions of antiquity are some stone
foundations, and a few stone tombs among the trees, which,
from their shape, may denote the sites of monasteries.

Near that pagoda were a number of men very drunk, and
there were few days on which the habit of drinking to excess
was not more or less prominent. The junkmen celebrated the
evening's rest by hard drinking, and the crowd which nightly
assembled on the shore when we tied up was usually enlivened
by the noisy antics of one or more intoxicated men. From my
observation on the Han journey and afterwards, I should say
that drunkenness is an outstanding feature in Korea. And it
is not disreputable. If a man drinks rice wine till he loses his
reason, no one regards him as a beast. A great dignitary even
may roll on the floor drunk at the end of a meal, at which he
has eaten to repletion, without losing caste, and on becoming
sober receives the congratulations of inferiors on being rich
enough to afford such a luxury. Along with the taste for
French clocks and German gilding, a love of foreign liquors
is becoming somewhat fashionable among the yowwg yang-bans ^
and willing caterers are found who produce potato spirit rich
in fusel oil as "old Cognac," and a very efl'ervescent cham-
pagne at a shilling a bottle !

The fermented liquors of Korea are probably not unwhole-
some, but the liking for them is an acquired taste with Euro-
peans. They vary from a smooth white drink resembling
buttermilk in appearance, and very mild, to a water-white
spirit of strong smell and fiery taste. Between these comes

92 Korea and Her Neighbors

the ordinary rice wine, slightly yellowish, akin to Japanese
sake and Chinese samshu, with a faint, sickly smell and flavor.
They all taste nnore or less strongly of smoke, oil, and alcohol,
and the fusel oil remains even in the best. They are manu-
factured from rice, millet, and barley. The wine-seller pro-
jects a cylindrical basket on a long pole from his roof, resem-
bling the '' bush " formerly used in England for a similar pur-
pose. Probably one reason that the Koreans are a drunken
people is that they scarcely use tea at all even in the cities, and
the luxury of ''cold water" is unknown to them. The
peasants drink hot rice water with their meals, honey water as
a luxury, and on festive occasions an infusion of orange peel
or ginger. The drying of orange peel is quite a business with
Korean housewives. There were quantities of it hanging from
the eaves of all the cottages.

Up to a short distance above this pagoda, the rapids for
which the Han is famous, though they made our progress
slow, had not suggested serious difficulty, far less risk, but for
the remaining fortnight they were tortuous rocky channels,
through which the river, compressed in width, rushes with
great violence and tremendous noise and clatter, or they are
successive broken ledges of rock, with a chaos of flurry and
foam, varied by deep pools, presenting formidable, and at
some seasons insuperable, obstacles to navigation. To all ap-
pearance they are far more dangerous than the celebrated
rapids of the Yangtze, and the remains of timber rafts and
junks attest their destructive properties. They occur at
shorter and shorter intervals as the higher waters are reached,
till eventually the Han becomes an unbroken rapid or
cataract.

Kim, though paid handsomely, was far too stingy to pay for
any help en route, his ropes were manifestly bought in "the
cheapest market," and though Wong, my powerful satnpan-
man, worked with both strength and skill, and Mr. Miller and
his servant toiled at the tow ropes, and in great exigencies I

Views Afloat 93

gave a haul myself, we sometimes made only 7 miles a day,
and ofttimes took two hours to ascend a few yards, two poling
with might and main in the boat, and three tugging with all
their strength on shore. Often the ropes snapped, when the
boat went spinning and flying to the foot of the rapid, some-
times with injury to herself and her contents, sometimes
escaping. After a few of such risks I habitually landed, either
on a boatman's back or wading in waterproof Wellingtons,
which caused great wonderment in the lookers on. The
worst rapids were always in the most beautiful places, and the
strolls and climbs of three or four hours along the river banks,
through fields with bounteous crops, through odorous Spanish
chestnut groves, through thickets with their fascinating be-
wilderments of roses, clematis, and honeysuckle, and past
farmhouses with their privacy of bamboo screens, and deep
shade of blossoming fruit trees, were very delightful.

In ten days from Seoul we reach Chong-phyong, a town of
some pretensions, where in connection with the yamen is a
temple pavilion with a high white chair, facing a table with
candlesticks upon it, floor, table, and chair deep in dust,
though the building is used regularly for offering prayers and
sacrifices for the King. Dust is not noteworthy in Korea, but
the paintings in this temple are. On the end walls are vivid
groups of six noblemen wearing fine horsehair palace hats
with wings, each man holding a piece of folded paper in his
hand, and listening intently as he bends forward towards the
chair. The conception and technique of these paintings are
admirable, and the sunset scenes on the back wall, though
inferior in execution, are the work of a true artist.

Close by is a Royal pavilion hanging over the edge of a
high bluff above the Han, surrounded by superb elms, some
of their trunks from 20 to 23 feet in circumference. The
view of the fertile valley and of the mountains beyond is very
fine, and the decorative woodwork, painted in Korean style,
has been very handsome; but the phrase ^*has been" de-

94 Korea and Her Neighbors

scribes most things Korean, and official squalor and neglect
could scarcely go farther.

At Chong-phyong and elsewhere the common people, in
spite of their overpowering curiosity, were not rude, and
usually retired to a respectful distance to watch us eat ; but
from the class of scholars who hang on round all yametis we
met with a good deal of underbred impertinence, some of the
men going so far as to raise the curtain of my compartment
and introduce their heads and shoulders beneath it, brow-
beating the boatmen when they politely asked them to desist.
On the other hand, men of the non-cultured class showed us
various small attentions, sometimes helping with a haul at the
ropes at a rapid, only asking in return that their wives might
see me, a request with which I always gladly complied. At
Chong-phyong, so great was female curiosity that a number of
women waded waist deep after the boat to peer under the mats
of the roof, and one of them, scrambling out to a rock for a
final stare, overbalanced herself and fell into deep water. At
one point, in the very early morning, some women presented
themselves at the boat, having walked several // with a present
of eggs, the payment for which was to be a sight of me and
my poor equipments, they having heard that there was a boat
with a foreign woman on board. The old cambric curtains
brought from Persia, with a red pattern on a white ground,
always attracted them greatly, and the small Japanese cooking
utensils.

In thirteen days from Seoul we reached Tan -Yang, a magis-
tracy prettily situated on the left bank of the Han, with a
picturesque Confucian temple on the hill above ; and a day
later entered upon mountainous country of extreme beauty.
The paucity of tributaries is very marked. Up to that point,
except the north branch, there are but two — one which joins
the Han at the village of Hu-nan Chang, on the right bank,
and is navigable for 60 //, as far as the important town of
Wan Juj and another, which enters 2 // above the pictur-

Views Afloat 95

esquely-situated village of So-il, on the left bank. Above
Tan-Yang the river forms long and violent rapids, alternating
with broad stretches of blue, quiet water from 10 to 20 feet
deep, rolling majestically, making sharp and extraordinary
bends among lofty limestone precipices. Villages on natural
terraces occur constantly, the lower terrace planted with mul-
berry or weeping willows. Hemp is cultivated in great quan-
tities, and is used for sackcloth for mourners' wear, bags, and
rope. In my walks along the river I had several opportunities
of seeing the curious method of separating the fibre, rude and
primitive, but effectual. At the bottom of a stone paved pit
large stones are placed, which are heated from a rough oven
at the side. The hemp is pressed down in bundles upon these,
and stakes are driven in among them. Piles of coarse Korean
grass are placed over the hemp, and earth over all, well beaten
down. The stakes are then pulled up and water is poured into
the holes left by them. This, falling on the heated stones, pro-
duces a dense steam, and in twenty-four hours the hemp fibre
is so completely disintegrated as to be easily separated.

A grand gorge, 3 miles long, with lofty cliffs of much-cav-
erned limestone, varied by rock needles draped with Ampelopsis
and clematis, and giving foothold to azaleas, spirea, syringa,
pear, hawthorn, climbing roses, wistaria, cyclamen, lycopo-
dium, yellow vetches, many LabiatcB, and much else, contains
but one village, piled step above step in a deep wooded fold of
the hills, on which millet culture is carried to a great height,
on slopes too steep to be ploughed by oxen. This gorge opens
out on slopes of rich soil, some of which is still uncultivated.
The hamlets are small, and grow much hemp, and each has its
hemp pit. They also grow Urtica Nivea, from the bleached
fibre of which their grass cloth summer clothes are made. All
these are surrounded with mulberry groves.

The large village of Cham-su-ki, at the head of two severe
rapids, in ascending which our ropes snapped three times, offers
a good example of the popular belief in spirits. It is approached

96 Korea and Her Neighbors

under a tasselled straw rope, one end of which is wound round
a fine tree with a stone altar below it. On another rope were
suspended a few small bags containing offerings of food. If a
person dies of the pestilence or by the roadside, or a woman dies
in childbirth, the spirit invariably takes up its abode in a tree.
To such spirits offerings are made on the stone altar of cake,
wine, and pork, but where the tree is the domicile of the spirit
of a man who has been killed by a tiger, dog's flesh is offered
instead of pork. The Cham-su-ki tree is a fine well-grown
elm. Gnarled trees, of which we saw several on hilltops and
sides, are occupied by the spirits of persons who have died be-
fore reaching a cycle, i.e. sixty years of age. A steep cliff
above Cham-su-ki is also denoted as the abode of daemons by
a straw rope and a stone altar.

We had some very cold and windy days near the end of April,
the mercury falling to 34°, and one night of tempestuous rain.
It would be absurd to write of sufferings, but at that tempera-
ture in an open boat, with the roof lifting and flapping and
threatening to take its departure, it was impossible to sleep.
Afterwards the weather was again splendid.

Abrupt turns, long rapids full of jagged rocks, long stretches
of deep, still water, abounding in fish, narrow gorges walled
in by terraces of basalt, lateral ravines disclosing fine snow-
streaked peaks, succeeded each other, the shores becoming less
and less peopled, while the parallel valleys abounded in fairly
well-to-do villages. Just below a long and dangerous rapid we
stopped to dine, and though the place seemed quite solitary, a
crowd soon gathered, and sat on the adjacent stones talking
noisily, trying to get into the boat, lifting the mats, discussing
whether it were polite to watch people at dinner, some taking
one side and some another, those who were half tipsy taking
the affirmative. Some said that they had got news from sev-
eral miles below that this great sight was coming up the river,
and it was a shame to deprive them of it by keeping the cur-
tains down. After a good deal of obstreperousness, mainly the

Views Afloat 97

result of wine, a man overbalanced himself and fell into the
river, which raised a laugh, and then they followed us good-
naturedly up the rapid, one man helping to track, and asking
as his reward that his wife might see me, on which I exhibited
myself on the bow of the boat.

At the village of Pang-wha San, built, contrary to Korean
practice, on a height of 800 feet, there is a stone platform, on
which was nightly lighted one of that chain of beacon fires ter-
minating at Nam-San in Seoul, which assured the King that
his kingdom was at peace. ^ Another village, Ha-chin, was im-
pressive from the frightful ugliness of its women. After leav-
ing Tan-Yang the curiosity increased. People walked great dis-
tances to see us, saying they had never seen foreigners, and
bringing eggs to pay for the sight, which I paid for, telling the
people that we had nothing to show ; but extravagant rumors
of what was to be seen in the boat had preceded us, and as the
people assembled at daylight and generally waited patiently, I
always yielded to their wishes, raised the thatch, and made the
most of the red and white curtains. In one place I gave them
some tea to drink. They had never seen it, and thought it
was medicine, and on tasting it said, *'It must be very good
for indigestion ! "

I The telegraph has now superseded this picturesque arrangement.

CHAPTER VIII

NATURAL BEAUTY THE RAPIDS

IN superb weather, and in the full glory of spring, we con-
tinued the exploration of the Han above Tan-Yang, en-
countering innumerable rapids, some of them very severe and
horrible to look upon. The river valley, continually narrow-
ing into gorges, rarely admits of hamlets, and the population
is relegated to lateral and parallel valleys. On the 30th of
April we tugged and poled the boat up seven long and severe
rapids, with deep still stretches of water between them. The
flora increased in variety, and the shapes of the mountains be-
came very definite. Among other trees there were a large
branching Acanthopanax ricinifolia, two species of euonymus,
mistletoe on the walnut and mulberry, the Rhus semi-alata
and Rhus vernicifera, pines, firs, the Abies microsperma, the
Actinidia pueraria, Elceagmcs, Spanish chestnuts in great
groves, alders, birches, maples, elms, limes, and a tree infre-
quently seen which I believe to be a Zelkcuva. Among the
flowers, there were marigolds, buttercups, scentless white and
purple violets, yellow violas, white aconite, lady's slipper, hawk-
weed, camomile, red and white dandelions, guelder roses, wyge-
lias, mountain peonies, martagon and tiger lilies, gentians, pink
spirea, yellow day lilies, white honeysuckle, the Iris Rossii,
and many others.

The day after leaving Tan-Yang we entered on the most
beautiful part of the river. Great limestone cliffs swing open
at times to reveal glorious glimpses, through fantastic gorges,
of peaks and ranges, partly forest-covered, fading in the far
distance into the delicious blue veil of dreamland ; the river,

98

Natural Beauty — The Rapids 99

occasionally compressed by its colossal walls, vents its fury in
flurry and foam, or expands into broad reaches 20 and even 30
feet in depth, where pure emerald water laps gently upon crags
festooned with roses and honeysuckle, or in fairy bays on peb-
bly beaches and white sand. The air was full of gladness.
The loud call of the fearless ringed pheasant was heard every-
where, bees hummed and butterflies and dragon-flies flashed
through the fragrant air. What mattered it that our ropes
broke three times, that we stuck on a rock in a rapid and hung
there for an hour in a deafening din and a lather of foam, and
that we "beat the record " in only making 5 miles in twelve
hours !

The limestone cliffs are much caverned, and near the village
of To-tam, where they fall back considerably from the river,
we explored one cave worthy of notice, with a fine entrance
arch 43 feet in height, admitting into a vault considerably
higher, with a roof of stalagmites. We ascended this cavern
for 315 feet, and then had to return for lack of light. Near
the mouth a natural shaft and rock-ladder give access to a fine
upper gallery 12 feet high, only 60 feet of which we were able
to investigate. Just above To-tam there is another limestone
freak on the river bank, a natural bridge or arch, 127 feet in
height and 30 feet wide, below which a fair green lawn slopes
up to a height above. The bridge is admirably buttressed,
and draped with roses, honeysuckle, and clematis, and various
fantastic specimens of coni ferae grow out of its rifts.

The beauty of the Han culminates at To-tam in the finest
river view I had then ever seen, a broad stretch, with a deep bay
and lofty limestone cliffs, between which, on a green slope,
the picturesque, deep-eaved, brown-roofed houses of the village
are built. The gray cliff is crowned with a goodly group of
umbrella pines, in Korea called ''Parasol Pines," because
they resemble in shape those carried before the King. Guard-
ing the entrance of the bay are three picturesque jagged pyram-
idal rocks much covered with the AmJ>elopsis VeiUhiatta,

lOO Korea and Her Neighbors

and of course sacred to daemon worship. These senthiels are
from 40 to 83 feet high. To the southwest the Han, dark and
deep, rolls out of sight round a pine-clad bluff, among the
magnificent ranges of the Sol-rak-San mountains — masses of
partially pine-clothed peaks and pinnacles of naked rock. To
the northeast the river makes an abrupt bend below superb
limestone cliffs, and disappears at the foot of Solmi-San, a
triplet of lofty peaks. To-tam on its park-like slopes embraces
this view, and were it not for the rapids and their delays and
risks, might be a delightful summer resort from Seoul.

There is fertility as well as grandeur, for the ridge behind
the village, abrupt on the riverside, falls gently down on the
other to a broad, well- watered level valley, cultivated for rice
with extreme neatness and care, and which, after gladdening
the eye with its productiveness for several miles, winds out of
view among the mountains.

There, and in most parts of the Han valley, I was much
surprised with the neatness of the cultivation. It was not
what the reports of other travellers had led me to expect, and
it gives me the impression that the river passes through one of
the most productive and prosperous portions of Korea. The
crops of wheat and barley were usually superb, and remarkably
free from weeds — in fact, the cleanliness would do credit to
''high farming" in the Lothians. It was no uncommon
thing to find from 12 to 18 stalks as the product of one grain.
At the end of April the barley was in ear, and beginning to
change color, and the wheat was 6 inches high. As a general
rule the stones were carefully picked off the land and were
used for retaining walls for the rice terraces, or piled in heaps.
Steep hillsides were being cleared of scrub and stones for cot-
ton planting, and in many instances the cultivation is carried
to a height of 1,000 feet, the cultivators always, however, liv-
ing in the holes. All the parallel valleys are neatly and care-
fully cultivated. The favorable climate, with its abundant,
but not superabundant, rainfall, renders irrigation needless,

Natural Beauty — The Rapids loi

except in the case of rice. Every valley has its streamlet, and
is barred across by dykes of mud from its head down to the
Han, rice, with tobacco, beans, hemp, and cotton, being the
great articles of export. On the whole, I was very agreeably
surprised with the agriculture of the Han valley, and doubt
not that it is capable of enormous development if the earnings
of industry were secure. The soil is most prolific, heavy
crops being raised without the aid of fertilizers.

After leaving beautiful To-tam, the rapids become more and
more frequent and exasperating, and when Kim sank down,
playing upon my feelings by well-simulated exhaustion, I
feared it would soon become real. The ropes broke frequently,
and the constant scraping and bumping over rocks increased
the leakiness of the boat so much, that in a lovely reach,
where crystal water rippled on the white sand, I pitched my
tent, and unloaded and beached the craft for repairs. In one
strong deep rapid that day the rope parted, and the boat
swirled down the surges, striking rocks as she spun down with
such effect as to spoil a number of photographic negatives and
soak my bedding.

At the beautifully situated village of Pa-ka Mi, a post bore
the following inscription in large characters — " If any servant
of a yafig-baii passing through Pa-ka Mi is polite and behaves
well, all right, but if he beliaves badly he will be beaten," an
assertion of independence as refreshing as it is rare !

For among the curses of Korea is the existence of this priv-
ileged class of yang-bans or nobles, who must not work for
their own living, though it is no disgrace to be supported by
their relations, and who often live on the clandestine industry
of their wives in sewing and laundry work. A yang-ban car-
ries nothing for himself, not even his pipe. Yang-ban stu-
dents do not even carry their books from their studies to the
classroom. Custom insist that when a member of this class
travels he shall take with him as many attendants as he can
muster. He is supported on his led horse, and supreme help-

102 Korea and Her Neighbors

lessness is the conventional requirement. His servants brow-
beat and bully the people and take their fowls and eggs with-
out payment, which explains the meaning of the notice at
Pa-ka Mi.i

There is no doubt that the people, /. e. the vast mass of the
unprivileged, on whose shoulders rests the burden of taxation,
are hard pressed by the yang-bans, who not only use their
labor without paying for it, but make merciless exactions under
the name of loans. As soon as it is rumored or known that a
merchant or peasant has laid up a certain amount of cash, a
ya?ig-ban or official seeks a loan. Practically it is a levy, for
if it is refused the man is either thrown into prison on a false
charge and whipped every morning until he or his relations
pay the sum demanded, or he is seized and practically im-
prisoned on low diet in the yaug-baii's house until the money
is forthcoming. It is the best of the nobles who disguise their
exactions under the name of loans, but the lender never sees
principal or interest. It is a very common thing for a noble,
when he buys a house or field, to dispense with paying for it,
and no mandarin will enforce payment. At Paik-kui Mi,
where I paid off my boatmen, the yang-ban's servants were
impressing all the boats for the purpose of taking roofing tiles
to Seoul without payment. Kim begged me to give him some
trifle to take down the river, with a few cash as payment, and
a line to say that the boat was in my employment, service with
a foreigner being a protection from such an exaction.

There were two days more of most severe toil, in which it
was scarcely possible to make any progress. The rapids were
frightful, and when we reached a very bad one below the town
of Yong-chhun, Kim, after making several abortive efforts,
not, I think, in good faith, to ascend it, collapsed, and said he
could not get up any higher. At another season boats of light
draught can ascend to Yang-wol, 20 // farther. We had per-

» Class privileges are now abolished, on paper at least, but their tradi-
tion carries weight.

Natural Beauty— The Rapids 103

formed a great feat in getting up to Yong-chhun in early May.
There were no boats on the higher waters, and for much of
the distance my sa7npa7i could hardly be said to be afloat. At
Yong-chhun we were within 40 miles of the Sea of Japan.

Wind and heavy rain which raised the river forbade all lo-
comotion until the following evening, when we crossed the
Han and reached the Yong-chhun ferry by a pretty road
through a village and a wood, most attractive country, with
many novelties in its flora. At the ferry a still expanse of the
Han is over 10 feet deep, but the roar of another rapid is
heard immediately above. A double avenue of noble elms
with fine turf underneath them leads to the town, a magistracy
of 1,500 people, a quiet market-place without shops, situated
in a rich farming basin of alluvial soil, covered in May with
heavy crops of barley and wheat, among which were fields
hillocked for melons.

The magistracy buildings are large and rambling, with what
has been a fine entrance gate, with a drum and other instru-
ments of aural torture for making the deafening din with which
the yamen is closed and opened at sunrise and sunset. There
are many stone tablets (not spontaneously erected) to worthy
officials, a large enclosure in which sacrifices are offered to
*' Heaven " (probably to the Spirits of the Land), a Confucian
temple, and a king's pavilion, all very squalid and ruinous.

A crowd not altogether polite followed us to the yamen, where
I hoped that some information regarding an overland route
to the Diamond Mountain might be obtained. On enter-
ing the yamen precincts the underling officials were most
insolent, and it was only after enduring their unpleasant be-
havior for some time that we were conducted to a squalid inner
room, where a deputy-mandarin sat on the floor with a smok-
ing apparatus beside him, a man with a scornful and sinister
physiognomy, who took not the slightest notice of us, and
when he deigned to speak gave curt replies through an under-
ling, while we stood outside the entrance, withstanding with

104 Korea and Her Neighbors

difficulty the pressure of the crowd, which had surged in after
us, private interviews being rare in the East. This was my
last visit to a Korean yamen.

As we walked back to the town, the crowd followed us
closely, led by some "swells" of the literary class. One
young man came up behind me and kicked me on the ankle,
stepping back and then coming forward and repeating the of-
fense. He was about to give me a third kick, when Mr.
Miller turned round and very quietly, without anger, dealt him a
scientific blow on the chest, which sent him off the road upon
his back into a barley field. There was a roar of laughter
from the crowd, and the young bully's companions begged
Mr. Miller not to punish him any more. The crowd dispersed,
the bullies, cowards like all their species, fell far behind, and
we had a pleasant walk back to the ferry, where, although we
had to wait a long time in the ferry boat, there was no as-
semblage, and the ferryman and passengers were very civil.
Mr. Miller regretted the necessity for inflicting punishment.
It was Lynch law no doubt, but it was summary justice, and
the perfect coolness with which it was administered would no
doubt leave a salutary impression. The ferryman told us that
a tiger had carried off a pig from Yong-chhun the previous
night, and said that the walk to our boat through the wood
without lanterns was very unsafe. Our boatmen had become
alarmed and were hunting for us with torches. The circum-
stances were eerie, and I was glad to see the lights.

Ferries are free. The Government provides the broad,
strong boats which are used for ferrying cattle as well as
people, and the villages provide the ferrymen with food.
Passengers who are not poor usually give a small douceur.

A gale of wind with torrents of rain set in that night, and
the rain continued till the next afternoon, giving me an oppor-
tunity of seeing more of the detail of the magnificent cliffs of
laminated limestone, which occur frequently, and are the most
striking geological features of the Han valley, continually

Natural Beauty — The Rapids 105

presenting the appearance of the leaves of a colossal book.
Above the Yong-chhun rapid, on a steep and almost inacces-
sible declivity, buttressed by these cliffs, are the remains of a
very ancient fortress, the outer wall of which, enclosing the
summit of the hill, is 2,500 feet in circumference, 25 feet high
on the outside, from i to 12 feet on the inside, and from 9 to
12 feet thick. It is so arranged that its two gates, which open
on nearly direct descents of 20 feet, and are approached by
very narrow pathways, could only admit one man at a time.
It was obviously incapable of reduction by any force but
starvation. No mortar is used in the walls, which are very
efficiently built of small slabs of stone never more than 6
inches thick. The people have no traditions of its construc-
tion, but Mr. Miller, who is familiar with the fortresses of Nam-
San and Puk Han, thinks that it is of a much earlier date than
either. One of the signal fire stations is visible from this point
on the river.

On the 3rd of May we began the descent of the Han.
The worn-out ropes were used for the cooking fire, the poles
were stowed away, and paddles took their place. The heavy
rains had raised the river a foot, and changed its bright waters
into a turbid flood, down which we often descended in two
minutes distances which had taken two laborious hours on the
upward journey, flying down the centre of the stream instead
of crawling up the sides. Many small disasters occurred.
Several times the boat was nearly swamped by heavy surges,
or shivered by striking sunken rocks ; or, losing steerage way,
spun round and round, progressing downwards with many gy-
rations, usually stern foremost, amidst billows and foam, but
Kim, who was at his best on such occasions, usually contrived
to bring her to shore, bow on, at the foot of the rapid. On
one occasion, however, in a long rapid, in which the surges
were high and strong, by some mismanagement, regarding
which the boatmen quarrelled for an hour afterwards, the sam-
pan shipped such heavy seas from both sides as nearly to

lo6 Korea and Her Neighbors

swamp her. I was all but washed off my camp-bed, which
was on a level with the gunwale ; a number of sheets of geo-
graphical notes were washed away, some instruments belong-
ing to the R.G.S. were drowned in their box, more than forty
photographic negatives were destroyed, and clothing, bedding,
and flour were all soaked ! The rapids were in fact most ex-
citing, and their risks throw those of the Fu and the Yangtze
from Cheng-tu to Ichang quite into the shade.

In spite of a delay of half a day at Tan-Yang, owing to a
futile attempt to get cash for silver, and another half-day spent
in beaching and repairing the boat, which had been badly
bumped on a rock, we did the distance from Nang-chhon to
Ma-chai on the forks in four and a half days, or less than a
third of the time taken by the laborious ascent.

The penniless situation became so serious that one day be-
fore reaching Ma-chai I had to decide on returning to Seoul
for cash ! The treasuries were said to be empty ; no one be-
lieved in silver or knew anything about it, and supplies could
not be obtained. Fortunately we arrived at the market-place
of Ma-Kyo, a village of 1,850 people, on the market day, and
the pedlars gladly exchanged cash for 35 silver /<?« at the rate
of 3,000, and would willingly have changed 70. It took six
men to carry the coin to the boat, which was once more sub-
stantially ballasted. Ma-Kyo is the river port of Che-chon,
and has an unusually flourishing aspect, boasting of many
good houses with tiled roofs. It exports rice, beans, and grain
from the very rich agricultural country on both sides of the
river, and imports foreign cottons, Korean sackcloth, and salt.
Cotton in 20 cash the measure of 20 inches dearer at Ma-Kyo
than in Seoul, and at Nang-chhon 70 cash dearer.

When we reached the forks at Ma-chai, the boatmen, who
were tired of the trip, wanted to go back, but eventually they
were induced to fulfil their contract, and we entered the north
branch of the Han on a cool, glorious afternoon, following on
a night and morning of wind and rain. This north branch

Natural Beauty— The Rapids 107

also rises in the Keum-kang San or Diamond Mountain in the
province of Kong-won, and after a turbulent course of about
98 miles unites with the southern and larger branch of the
Han about two days' journey from Seoul. For a considerable
distance the country which it drains is populous and well cul-
tivated, and the hills of its higher reaches provide much of
the timber which is used in Seoul, as well as a large proportion
of the firewood and charcoal. The timber is made up into
very peculiar rafts, which come down at high water, but even
then are frequently demolished in the rapids. The river
widens out above Ma-chai, and for a considerable distance
has an average breadth of 440 yards, but as a rule it is shal-
low, and its bottom dangerously rocky, and it has incessant
rapids full of jagged rocks, some of which are very dangerous,
and so '' ugly " that as I went up them I was truly glad that I
had not to descend them. Many a long, hard tug and broken
hawser we had, but succeeded in hauling the sampan 7 miles
above the limit of low water navigation, which is the same
distance from the termination of boat traffic at high water. I
estimate the distance from Ma-chai to Ut-Kiri, where further
progress was stopped by an insurmountable rapid, at 76 miles,
which took nine days, though Kim and his man, anxious to
go home, worked much harder than on our earlier trip.

For the first few days there are villages every quarter of a
mile, and lateral and parallel valleys, then rich in clean crops
of barley and wheat. The river villages are surrounded by
groves of Spanish chestnut, mulberry, cherry, persimmons, and
weeping willows. There are deep crateriform cavities, now
full of trees and abundant vegetation. The hills are covered
with oak scrub, affording cover for tigers, which appear to
abound. The characteristics of the villages and the agricul-
ture hardly vary from those on the south branch, except that
the potato is more extensively grown. The absence of provin-
cial and local peculiarities is a feature of Korea. An alley in
Seoul may serve for a village street anywhere else.

io8 Korea and Her Neighbors

Gold in small quantities is found along the river, and rumor
says that Ur-rop-so, a conical hill near the dangerous rapid of
Chum-yol, is rich in it, but that the district official prohibits
digging. Higher up a number of men were washing for gold.
Their apparatus consists of a wooden sieve or gridiron, on
which the supposed auriferous earth is placed above a deep
wooden tray, and rocked under water till the heavier stuff
passes through, to be again rocked in search of the glittering
particles. The results are placed on the river bank in pieces
of broken pottery, each watched by a man. The earth is ob-
tained by removing the heavy shingle of the river bank and
digging up the sand to a depth of about 2 feet, when rock is
reached. From 60 to 100 trays are equal to a bushel and a
half, and the yield of this quantity averages half a thimbleful
of gold in a state of fine subdivision. These gold-washers
seldom make more than i6s. per month, and only about 50s.
when working in the best goldfields.

Gold ornaments are rarely seen in Korea, gold is scarcely if
at all used in the arts (if arts there are), and gold coins do not
exist. Nevertheless, as is shown by the Customs Reports, the
quantity of gold dust exported, chiefly to Japan, is very far
from being despicable, although the reefs which presumably
contain the metal, of which the washings are the proof, have
not yet been touched. The fees paid by the miners to the
Government vary with the locality. Gold-digging without
Government authorization is prohibited by law under most
severe penalties. Among the richest goldfields in Korea are
Phyong Kang, not far from the Han, and Keum-San in
Phyong-an Do, not far from the Tai-dong. The larger wash-
ings collect as elsewhere the scum of the country, and riots
often occur among the miners. I know not on which subject
the Korean is the more voluble, tigers or gold. He is proud
of Korea as a gold-producing country, and speaks as if its dust
were golden sand !

The groves of Spanish chestnuts with which the North Han

Natural Beauty — The Rapids 109

is fringed gave off an overpowering odor. Their fruit is an
important article of diet. Usually the arable land below the
villages is little more than a terrace, but on the hillsides above
the grain rippled in long yellow waves in the breeze, and the
hills constantly swing apart and reveal terraced valleys and
brown orchard embowered hamlets ; or slightly receding, ex-
pose stretches of white sand or heaps of fantastic boulders.

After two days of severe work we reached the beautifully
situated town of Ka-phyong, which straggles along the valley
of a small tributary of the Han on slopes backed by high
mountains which, following the usual Korean custom, are with-
out names. The bright green of the wheat fields, varied by
the darker green of clumps of conifers and chestnuts, arranged
as if by a landscape gardener, and the lines of trees along the
river bank were enchanting, but Ka-phyong does not bear
close inspection. The telegraph wire from Seoul to Won-san
crosses the river at Sin-gang Kam, and there is actually a tele-
graph station at Chun-chon, the most important town of that
region, at which messages are received and sent about once a
month !

Chun-chon is four miles from the Han on its left bank. It
is fortified, and has nominally a garrison of 300 men. Hav-
ing a population of 3,000, and being in the centre of a fine
agricultural district, it is a place of some trade, as trade is
understood in Korea. Just below it the Han, after running
for some distance below a lofty quartz ridge, makes an abrupt
turn and penetrates it, the walls of the passage having the
regularity of a railway cutting, while the bed of the stream is
of pure white quartz.

Beyond this singular gateway the river valley opens out, and
the spectacle, rare in Korea, of cattle is to be seen. Indeed,
I only once saw cattle feeding elsewhere. The grass is coarse
and sour, and hand feeding is customary. It was most pleas-
ant to be awoke in the dewy morning by bellowing of cattle,
shouts and laughter of boys and yelping of dogs, as bulls old

no Korea and Her Neighbors

and young were driven to the river bank to be tethered in the
flowery grass. The frolicsome bull calves, which are brought
up in the Korean home, and are attended to by the children,
who are their natural playmates, develop under such treatment
into that maturity of mingled gentleness and stateliness which
is characteristic of the Korean bull, — the one grand thing re-
maining to Korea. When full grown a bull can carry from
350 to 500 lbs. They are fed on boiled beans, cut millet
stalks, and cut pea haulm, and the water in which the beans
are boiled. They are led by a rope passed round the horns
from a bamboo ring in the nose. The prevailing color is a
warm red, and the huge animal in build much resembles the
shorthorn. The Korean cow, which is to be seen carrying
loads in Northern Korea, is a worthy dam of such a splendid
progeny.

The scenery, though always pretty, becomes monotonous
after a few days, and monotonous too were the adventures in
the rapids, which were innumerable, and the ceaseless toiling,
dragging, and tugging they involved. Reaching Won-chon, a
post station on the road to Won-san, we halted and engaged
horses for a land journey, at a very high rate, but they and
their mapu or grooms turned out well, and as Wong senten-
tiously remarked, '' If you pay well, you will be served well."
The agreement, which I caused to be put into writing, and
which I made use of in other journeys, with much mutual
satisfaction, was duly signed, and we continued the boat
journey.

After spending half a day at the prefectural town of Nang-
chhon, where I am glad to record that the officials were very
courteous, we ascended the Han to a point above the wild
hamlet of Ut-Kiri, on a severe rapid full of jagged rocks.
Ut-Kiri is above the head of low water navigation, but in two
summer months during the rains small boats can reach Ku-mu-
nio, " the last village," 20 // higher. It was a wild termina-
tion of the long boat journey. An abrupt turn of the river,

Natural Beauty — The Rapids in

and its monotonous prettiness is left behind, and there is a
superb mountain view of saddleback ridges and lofty gray
peaks surrounding a dark expanse of water, with a margin of
gray boulders and needles of gray rock draped with the
Ampelopsis, a yellow clematis, and a white honeysuckle. It
was somewhat sad not to be able to penetrate the grim austerity
to the northward, but the rapids were so severe and the water
ofttimes so shallow that it was impossible to drag the sampan
farther, though at that time she only drew 2 inches of water.
From Ma-chai on the forks she had been poled and dragged
up forty rapids, making eighty-six on the whole journey.

From the thinly peopled solitudes of these upper waters we
descended rapidly, though not without some severe bumps, to
the populous river banks, where villages are half hidden among
orchards and chestnut and mulberry groves, and the crops are
heavy, and that abundance of the necessaries of life which in
Korea passes for prosperity is the rule.

Ta-rai, a neat, prosperous place of 240 people, among
orchards, and hillsides terraced and bearing superb crops, is
an example of the riverine villages. Its houses are built step
above step along the sides of a ravine, down which a perennial
stream flows, affording water power for an automatic rice hull-
ing machine. For exports and imports the Han at high
water is a cheap and convenient highway. The hill slopes
above the village, with their rich soil, afford space for agricul-
tural expansion for years to come. And not to dwell alto-
gether on the material, there is a shrine of much repute on a
fork-like slope near the river. It contains a group of mirioks,
in this case stones worn by the action of water into the sem-
blance of human beings. The central figure, larger than life,
may even to a dull imagination represent a person carrying an
infant, and its eyes, nose, and mouth are touched in with
China ink. It is surrounded by Phallic symbols and mirioks,
which may be supposed to represent children, and women
make prayers and offerings in this shrine in the hope of ob-

112 Korea and Her Neighbors

taining a much coveted increase in their families, for male
children are still regarded as a blessing in Korea, and '' happy
is the man that hath his quiver full of them."

Ka phyong again, a small prefectural town of 400 houses i}4
miles from the river, is a good specimen of the small towns of
the Han valley, with a ruinous ya/^i en, of course, with its non-
producing mob of hangers-on. It is on the verge of an alluvial
plain, rolling up to picturesque hills, gashed by valleys,
abounding in hamlets surrounded by chestnut groves and care-
ful cultivation. The slopes above Ka-phyong break up into
knolls richly wooded with conifers and hard-wood trees, fring-
ing off into clumps and groups which would not do discredit
to the slopes of Windsor. The people of a large district bring
their produce into the town, and barter it for goods in the
market. The telegraph wire to Won-san crosses the affluent
on which Ka-phyong is built, and is carried along a bridle
path which for some // runs along the river bank. Junks
loaded 10 feet above their gunwales, as well as 4 feet outside
of them with firewood, and large rafts were waiting for the
water to rise. Boats were being built and great quantities of
the strong rope used for towing and other purposes, which is
made from a "creeper" which grows profusely in Central
Korea, were awaiting water carriage. Yet Ka-phyong, like
other small Korean towns, has no life or go. Its '' merchants "
are but pedlars, its commercial ideas do not rise above those
of the huckster, and though poverty, as we understand it, is
unknown, prosperity as we understand it is absent. There are
no special industries in any of the riverine towns, and if they
were all to disappear in some catastrophe it would not cause a
ripple on the surface of the general commercial apathy of the
country.

Similar remarks apply to the prefectural town of Nang-
chhon, where we again wasted some hours, while Kim's rice
was first bargained for and then cleaned. At that point there
is a fine deep stretch of the river 230 yards broad abounding

Natural Beauty — The Rapids 1 1 3

in fish. From Nang-chhon we dropped down the Han to a
deep and pretty bay on which the small village of Paik-kui Mi
is situated, where we halted for Sunday, our last day in the
sampan, which had been a not altogether comfortless home for
five weeks and a half.

CHAPTER IX

KOREAN MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

PAIK-KUI MI was not without a certain degree of life on that
Sunday. A yang-ban' s steward impressed boats for the
gratuitous carriage of tiles to Seoul, which caused a little fee-
ble excitement among the junkmen. There was a sick person,
and a mutang or female exorcist was engaged during the whole
day in the attempt to expel the malevolent daemon which was
afflicting him, the process being accompanied by the constant
beating of a drum and the loud vibrating sound of large cym-
bals. Lastly, there was a marriage, and this deserves more
than a passing notice, marriage, burial, and exorcism, with
their ceremonials, being the outstanding features of Korea.^

The Korean is nobody until he is married. He is a being
of no account, a ''hobbledehoy." The wedding-day is the
entrance on respectability and manhood, and marks a leap up-
wards on the social ladder. The youth, with long abundant
hair divided in the middle and plaited at the back, wearing a
short, girdled coat, and looking as if he had no place in the
world though he may be quite grown up, and who is always
taken by strangers for a girl, is transformed by the formal re-
ciprocal salutations which constitute the binding ceremony of
marriage. He has received the tonsure, and the long hair sur-
rounding it is drawn into the now celebrated ''topknot."
He is invested with the mangan, a crownless skullcap or fillet
of horsehair, without which, thereafter, he is never seen. He

1 The notes on marriage customs which follow were given me by Eng-
lish-speaking Koreans and were taken down at the time. They apply
chiefly to the middle class.

114

Korean Marriage Customs 115

wears a black hat and a long full coat, and his awkward gait
is metamorphosed into a dignified swing. His boy companions
have become his inferiors. His name takes the equivalent of
" Mr." after it; honorifics must be used in addressing him —
in short, from being a '' nobody " he becomes a '' somebody."

A girl by marrying fulfils her '' manifest destiny." Spins-
terhood in Korea is relegated to the Buddhist nunneries, where
it has no reputation for sanctity. Absolutely secluded in the
inner court of her father's house from the age of seven, a girl
passes about the age of seventeen to the absolute seclusion of
the inner rooms of her father-in-law's house. The old ties are
broken, and her husband's home is thenceforth her prison. It
is *< custom." It is only to our thinking that the custom
covers a felt hardship. It is needless to add that the young
couples do not choose each other. The marriage is arranged
by the fathers, and is consented to as a matter of course. A
man gains the reputation of being a neglectful father who
allows his son to reach the age of twenty unmarried. Seven-
teen or eighteen is the usual age at which a man marries. A
girl may go through the marriage ceremony as a mere child if
her parents think an " eligible " may slip through their fingers,
but she is not obliged to assume the duties of wifehood till she
is sixteen. On the other hand, boys of ten and twelve years
of age are constantly married when their parents for any reason
wish to see the affair settled and a desirable connection pre-
sents itself, and the yellow hats and pink and blue coats and
attempted dignity of these boy bridegrooms are among the
sights of the cities.

A go-between is generally employed for the preliminary ar-
rangements. No money is given to the bride's father by the
bridegroom, nor does the daughter receive a dowry, but she is
supplied with a large troussemc, which is packed in handsome
marriage chests with brass clamps and decorations. There is
no betrothal ceremony, and after the arrangement has been
made the marriage may be delayed for weeks or even months.

1 16 Korea and Her Neighbors

When it is thought desirable that it should take place, but not
until the evening before, the bridegroom's father sends a sort
of marriage-contract to the bride's father, who receives it with-
out replying, and two pieces of silk are sent to the bride, out
of which her outer garments must be made for the marriage
day.

A number of men carrying gay silk lanterns bear this pres-
ent to the bride, and on the way are met by a party of men
from her father's house bearing torches, and a fight ensues,
which is often more than a make-believe one, for serious blows
are exchanged, and on both sides some are hurt. Death has
occasionally been known to follow on the wounds received.
If the bridegroom's party is worsted in the melee it is a sign
that he will have bad luck; if the bride's, that she will have
misfortunes. The night before the marriage the parents of the
bride and groom sacrifice in their respective houses before the
ancestral tablets, and acquaint the ancestors with the event
which is to occur on the morrow.

The auspicious day having been decided on by the sorcerer,
about an hour before noon, the bridegroom on horseback, and
in Court dress, leaves his father's house, and on that occasion
only a plebeian can pass a yang-ban on the road without dis-
mounting. Two men walk before him, one carrying a white
umbrella, and the other, who is dressed in red cloth, a goose,
which is the emblem of conjugal fidelity. He is also attended
by several men carrying unlighted red silk lanterns, by various
servants, by a married brother, if he has one, or by his father
if he has not. On reaching his destination he takes the goose
from the hands of the man in red, goes into the house, and
lays it upon a table. Apropos of this emblem it must be ob-
served that conjugal fidelity is only required from the wife,
and is a feminine virtue only.

Two women who are hired to officiate on such occasions
lead the bride on to the veranda, or an estrade, and place her
opposite the bridegroom, who stands facing her, but at some

Korean Marriage Customs 117

little distance from her. The wedding guests fill the court-
yard. This is the man's first view of his future wife. She
may have seen him through a chink in the lattice or a hole in
the wall. A queer object she is to our thinking. Her face is
covered with white powder, patched with spots of red, and her
eyelids are glued together by an adhesive compound. At the
instigation of her attendants she bows twice to her lord, and
he bows four times to her. It is this public reciprocal '' salu-
tation " which alone constitutes a valid marriage. After it, if
he repudiates her, he cannot take another wife. The perma-
nence of the marriage tie is fully recognized in Korea, though
a man can form as many illicit connections as he chooses. A
cup of wine is then given to the bridegroom, who drinks a
little, after which it is handed to the bride, who merely
tastes it.

Afterwards within the house a table with a dainty dinner is
set before the husband, who eats sparingly. The bride retires
to the women's rooms, and the groom rejoices with his friends
in the men's apartments. There is no simultaneous banquet.
Each guest on arriving is supplied with a table of food. Such
a table, in the case of people of means, costs from five to six
yen (from los. to 12s.), and a very cheap wedding costs
seventy-five j<?;/, so that several daughters are a misfortune.

During the afternoon the husband returns to his father's
house, and after a time the bride, bundled up in a mass of
wedding clothes, and with her eyelids still sealed, attended by
the two women mentioned before, some hired girls, and men
with lanterns, goes thither also, in a rigidly closed chair, in
the gay decorations of which red predominates. There she is
received by her father and mother-in-law, to whom she bows
four times, remaining speechless. She is then carried back to
the house of her own parents, her eyelids are unsealed, and
the powder is washed from her face. At five her husband ar-
rives, but returns to his father's house on the following morn-
ing, this process of going and returning being repeated for

ii8 Korea and Her Neighbors

three days, after which the bride is carried in a plain chair to
her future home, under the roof of her parents-in-law, where
she is allotted a room or rooms in the seclusion of the women's
apartments.

The name bestowed on her by her parents soon after her
birth is dropped, and she is known thereafter only as "the
wife of so and so," or " the mother of so and so." Her hus-
band addresses her by the word yabii, signifying **Look
here," which is significant of her relations to him.

Silence is regarded as a wife's first duty. During the whole
of the marriage day the bride must be as mute as a statue. If
she says a word or even makes a sign she becomes an object
of ridicule, and her silence must remain unbroken even in her
own room, though her husband may attempt to break it by
taunts, jeers, or coaxing, for the female servants are all on the
qui vive for such a breach of etiquette as speech, hanging
about the doors and chinks to catch up and gossip even a
single utterance, which would cause her to lose caste for ever
in her circle. This custom of silence is observed with the
greatest rigidity in the higher classes. It may be a week or
several months before the husband knows the sound of his
wife's voice, and even after that for a length of time she only
opens her mouth for necessary speech. With the father-in-law
the law of silence is even more rigid. The daughter-in-law
often passes years without raising her eyes to his, or addressing
a word to him.

The wife has recognized duties to her husband, but he has
few, if any, to her. It is correct for a man to treat his wife
with external marks of respect, but he would be an object for
scorn and ridicule if he showed her affection or treated her as
a companion. Among the upper classes a bridegroom, after
passing three or four days with his wife, leaves her for a con-
siderable time to show his indifference. To act otherwise
would be "bad form." My impression is that the community
of interests and occupations which poverty gives, and the em-

Korean Marriage Customs 119

bargo which it lays on other connections, in Korea as in some
other Oriental countries, produces happier marriages among
the lower orders than among the higher. Korean women have
always borne the yoke. They accept inferiority as their
natural lot ; they do not look for affection in marriage, and
probably the idea of breaking custom never occurs to them.
Usually they submit quietly to the rule of the belle-merey and
those who are insubordinate and provoke scenes of anger and
scandal are reduced to order by a severe beating, when they
are women of the people. But in the noble class custom for-
bids a husband to strike his wife, and as his only remedy is a
divorce, and remarriage is difficult, he usually resigns himself
to his fate. But if, in addition to tormenting him and de-
stroying the peace of his house, the wife is unfaithful, he can
take her to a mandarin, who, after giving her a severe beating,
may bestow her on a satellite.

The seclusion of girls in the parental home is carried on
after marriage, and in the case of women of the upper and
middle classes is as complete as is possible. They never go
out by daylight except in completely closed chairs. At night,
attended by a woman and a servant with a lantern, and with a
mantle over her head, a wife may stir abroad and visit her fe-
male friends, but never without her husband's permission, who
requires, or may require, proof that the visit has been actually
paid. Shopping is done by servants, or goods are brought to
the veranda, the vendors discreetly retiring. Time, which
among the leisured classes hangs heavily on the hands, is spent
in spasmodic cooking, sewing, embroidering, reading very
light literature in Efi-mnn, and in the never-failing resources
of gossip and the interminable discussion of babies. If a
wife is very dull indeed, she can, with her husband's permis-
sion, send for actors, or rather posturing reciters, to the com-
pound, and look at them through the chinks of the bamboo
blinds. Through these also many Korean ladies have seen
the splendors of the Ki/r-dong.

120

Korea and Her Neighbors

When the Korean wife becomes a mother her position is
improved. Girls, as being unable to support their parents in
old age or to perform the ancestral rites, are not prized as boys
are, yet they are neither superfluous nor unwelcome as in some
Eastern countries. The birth of a girl is not made an occa-
sion for rejoicing, but that of the firstborn son is, and after the
name has been bestowed on him, the mother is known as '* the
mother of so and so." The first step alone of the first boy
is an occasion for family jubilation. Korean babies have no
cradles, and are put to sleep by being tapped lightly on the
stomach.

*

^.

\. ::r^-^i?.

A KOREAN LADY.

CHAPTER X

THE KOREAN PONY — KOREAN ROADS AND INNS

A GRAY and murky morning darkening into drizzle, which
thickened into a day's pouring rain, was an inauspicious
beginning of a long land journey, but the crawling up the
north Han had become monotonous and change and action
were desirable. Being an experienced muleteer, I had ar-
ranged the loads for each pony so equitably as to obviate the
usual quarrel among the mapic or grooms at starting ! The
men were not regular inaptly and were going chiefly to see the
Diamond Mountain. One was well educated and gentlemanly,
and the bystanders jeered at them for *' loading like scholars."
They were a family party, and there were no disputes.

My first experience of the redoubtable Korean pony was not
reassuring. The men had never seen a foreign saddle and were
half an hour in getting it ** fixed." Though a pony's saddle,
it was far too large for the creature's minute body, the girths
were half a yard and the crupper nearly a foot too long. The
animal bit, squealed, struck with his fore and hind feet, and
performed the singular feat of bending his back into such an
inward curve that his small body came quite near the ground.
The men were afraid of him, and it was only in the brief inter-
vals of fighting that they dared to make a dash at the buckles.
It was " tight-lacing" that he objected to.

The Korean pony is among the most salient features of
Korea. The breed is peculiar to it. The animals used for
burdens are all stallions, from lo to 12 hands high, well
formed, and singularly strong, carrying from 160 to 200 lbs.
30 miles a day, week after week, on sorry food. They are

122 Korea and Her Neighbors

most desperate fighters, squealing and trumpeting on all oc-
casions, attacking every pony they meet on the road, never
becoming reconciled to each other even on a long journey, and
in their fury ignoring their loads, which are often smashed to
pieces. Their savagery makes it necessary to have a mapu for
every pony, instead of, as in Persia, one to five. At the inn
stables they are not only chained down to the troughs by
chains short enough to prevent them from raising their heads,
but are partially slung at night to the heavy beams of the roof.
Even under these restricted circumstances their cordial hatred
finds vent in hyena-like yells, abortive snaps, and attempts to
swing their hind legs round. They are never allowed to lie
down, and very rarely to drink water, and then only when
freely salted. Their nostrils are all slit in an attempt to im-
prove upon Nature and give them better wind. They are fed
three times a day on brown slush as hot as they can drink it,
composed of beans, chopped millet stalks, rice husks, and
bran, with the water in which they have been boiled. The
mapu are rough to them, but I never saw them either ill-used
or petted. Dearly as I love horses, I was not able on two
journeys to make a friend of mine. On this journey I rode
a handsome chestnut, only lo hands high. He walked 4
miles an hour, and in a month of travelling, for much of it
over infamous mountain roads, never stumbled, but he resented
every attempt at friendliness both with teeth and heels. They
are worth from 50s. upwards, and cost little to keep.

Their attendants, the mapu, who are by no means always
their owners, or even part owners, are very anxious about them
and take very great care of them, seeing to what passes as their
comfort before their own. The pack saddle is removed at once
on halting, the animals are well rubbed, and afterwards thick
straw mats are bound round their bodies. Great care is given
to the cooking of their food. I know not whether the partial
slinging of them to the crossbeams is to relieve their legs or
to make fighting more difficult. On many a night I have been

The Korean Pony — Roads and Inns 123

kept awake by the screams of some fractious animal, kicking
and biting his neighbors as well as he was able, till there was
a general plunging and squealing, which lasted till blows and
execrations restored some degree of order.

After I mounted my steed, he trudged along very steadily,
unless any of his fellows came near him, when, with an evil
glare in his eyes and a hyena-like yell, he rushed upon them
teeth and hoof, entirely oblivious of bit and rider.

A torrent of rain fell, and the day's journey consisted in
splasliing through deep mud, fording swollen streams, because
the bridges which crossed them were rotten, getting wet to the
skin, and getting partially dry by sitting on the hot floor of a
hovel called an inn at the noonday halt, along with a steam-
ing crowd of all sorts and conditions of men in clean and dirty
white clothes.

The road by which we travelled is the main one from Seoul
to the eastern treaty port of Won-san. It passes through rice
valleys with abundant irrigation, and along the sides of bare
hills. Goods and travellers were not to be looked for in such
weather, but there were a few strings of coolies loaded with
tobacco, and a few more taking dried fish and dried seaweed,
the latter a great article of diet, from Won-san to the capital.
Fangas, or water pestles for hulling rice, under rude thatched
sheds, were numerous. These work automatically, and their
solemn thud has a tone of mystery. The machine consists of
a heavy log centred on a pivot, with a box at one end and a
pestle at the other. Water from a stream with some feet of
fall is led into the box, which when full tips over its contents
and bears down one end of the log, when the sudden rise, act-
ing on the pestle at the other end, brings it down with a heavy
thud on the rice in the hollowed stone, which serves as a mortar.
Where this simple machine does not exist the work is performed
by women.

Denuded hillsides gave place to wooded valleys with torrents
much resembling parts of Japan, the rain fell in sheets, and

124 Korea and Her Neighbors

quite in the early afternoon, on reaching the hamlet of Sar-
pang Kori, the mapu declined to proceed farther, and there I
had my first experience of a Korean inn. Many weeks on that
and subsequent journeys showed me that this abominable shel-
ter, as I then thought it, may be taken as a fair average speci-
men, and many a hearty meal and good sound sleep may be
enjoyed under such apparently unpropitious circumstances.

There are regular and irregular inns in Korea. The irregu-
lar inn differs in nothing from the ordinary hovel of the vil-
lage roadway, unless it can boast of a yard with troughs, and
can provide entertainment for beast as well as for man. The
regular inn of the towns and large villages consists chiefly of a
filthy courtyard full of holes and heaps, entered from the road
by a tumble-down gateway. A gaunt black pig or two tethered
by the ears, big yellow dogs routing in the garbage, and fowls,
boys, bulls, ponies, mapUy hangers-on, and travellers' loads
make up a busy scene.

On one or two sides are ramshackle sheds, with rude, hol-
lowed trunks in front, out of which the ponies suck the hot
brown slush which sustains their strength and pugnacity. On
the other is the furnace-shed with the oats where the slush is
cooked, the same fire usually heating the flues of the ka7ig?i.QOX
of the common room, while smaller fires in the same shed cook
for the guests. Low lattice doors filled in with torn and dirty
paper give access to a room the mud floor of which is concealed
by reed mats, usually dilapidated, sprinkled with wooden blocks
which serve as pillows. Farming gear and hat boxes often find
a place on the low heavy crossbeams. Into this room are
crowded mapu, travellers, and servants, the low residuum of
Korean travel, for officials and yang-bans receive the hospital-
ities of the nearest magistracy, and the peasants open their
houses to anybody with whom they have a passing acquaint-
ance. There is in all inns of pretensions, however, another
room, known as "the clean room," 8 feet by 6, which, if it
existed, I obtained, and if not I had a room in the women's

The Korean Pony — Roads and Inns 125

quarters at the back, remarkable only for its heat and vermin,
and the amount of ang-paks, bundles of dirty clothes, beans
rotting for soy, and other plenishings which it contained, and
which reduced its habitable portion to a minimum. At night
a ragged lantern in the yard and a glim of oil in the room made
groping for one's effects possible.

The room was always overheated from the ponies' fire. From
80° to 85° was the usual temperature, but it was frequently
over 92°, and I spent one terrible night sitting at my door be-
cause it was 105° within. In this furnace, which heats the
floor and the spine comfortably, the Korean wayfarer revels.

On arriving at an inn, the master or servant rushes at the
mud, or sometimes matted, floor with a whisk, raising a great
dust, which he sweeps into a corner. The disgusted traveller
soon perceives that the heap is animate as well as inanimate,
and the groans, sighs, scratchings, and restlessness from the
public room show the extent of the insect pest. But I never
suffered from vermin in a Korean inn, nor is it necessary.
After the landlord had disturbed the dust, Wong put down
either two heavy sheets of oiled paper or a large sheet of cot-
ton dressed with boiled linseed oil on the floor, and on these
arranged my camp-bed, chair, and baggage. This arrange-
ment (and I write from twenty months' experience in Korea
and China) is a perfect preventative.

In most inns rice, eggs, vegetables, and a it^ Korean dain-
ties, such as soup, vermicelli, dried seaweed, and a paste made
of flour, sugar, and oil, can be procured, but tea never, and the
position of the well, which frequently receives the soakage of
the courtyard, precludes a careful traveller from drinking aught
but boiled water. At the proper seasons chickens can be pur-
chased for about 4d. each, and pheasants for less. Dog meat
is for sale frequently in the spring, and pork occasionally.

The charges at Korean inns are ridiculously low. Nothing
is charged for the room with its glim and hot floor, but as I
took nothing for "the good of the house," I paid loo cash

126 Korea and Her Neighbors

per night, and the same for my room at the midday halt,
which gave complete satisfaction. Travellers who eat three
meals a day spend, including the trifling gratuities, from 200
to 300 cash per diem. Millet takes the place of rice in the
northern inns.

The Korean inn is not noisy unless wine is flowing freely,
and even then the noise subsides early. The fighting of the
ponies, and the shouts and execrations with which the inapu
pacify them, are the chief disturbances till daylight comes and
the wayfarers move on. Travelling after dark is contrary to
Korean custom.

From this slight sketch, the shadows of which will bear
frequent and much intensifying, it will be seen that Korean
travelling has a very seamy side, that it is entirely unsuited to
the "globe trotter," and that even the specialist may do well
to count the cost before embarking upon it.

To me the curse of the Korean inn is the ill-bred and un-
manageable curiosity of the people, specially of the women.
A European woman had not been seen on any part of the
journey, and I suffered accordingly. Sar-pang Kori may serve
as a specimen.

My quarters were opposite to the ponies, on the other side
of the foul and crowded courtyard. There were two rooms,
with a space under the roof as large as either between them,
on which the dripping baggage was deposited, and Wong es-
tablished himself with his cooking stove and utensils, though
there was nothing to cook except two eggs obtained with diffi-
culty, and a little rice left over from the boat stores. My
room had three paper doors. The unwalled space at once
filled up with a crowd of men, women, and children. All the
paper was torn off the doors, and a crowd of dirty Mongolian
faces took its place. I hung up cambric curtains, but long
sticks were produced and my curtains were poked into the
middle of the room. The crowd broke in the doors, and
filled the small space not occupied by myself and my gear.

The Korean Pony — Roads and Inns 127

The women and children sat on my bed in heaps, examined
my clothing, took out my hairpins and pulled down my hair,
took off my slippers, drew my sleeves up to the elbow and
pinched my arms to see if they were of the same flesh and
blood as their own; they investigated my few possessions mi-
nutely, trying on my hat and gloves, and after being turned out
by Wong three times, returned in fuller force, accompanied by
unmarried youths, the only good-looking ''girls" ever seen in
Korea, with abundant hair divided in the middle, and hanging
in long plaits down their backs. The pushing and crushing,
the odious familiarity, the babel of voices, and the odors of
dirty clothing in a temperature of 80°, were intolerable.
Wong cleared the room a fourth time, and suggested that when
they forced their way in again, they should find me sitting on
the bed cleaning my revolver, a suggestion I accepted. He
had hardly retired when they broke in again, but there was an
immediate stampede, and for the remainder of the evening I
was free from annoyance. Similar displays of aggressive and
intolerable curiosity occurred three times daily, and it was
hard to be always amiable under such circumstances.

The Koreans travel enormously, considering that they sel-
dom make pilgrimages. The pedlars, who solely supply the
markets, are always on the move, and thousands travel for
other reasons, such as the gatherings at ancestral tablets, rest-
lessness, ennui, ku-kyong or sightseeing, visits to tombs,
place-hirnting, literary examinations, place-keeping and at-
tempting to deprive others of place, litigation, and business.
The fear of tigers and daemons prevents people from journey-
ing by night, which is as well, as the bearers of official pass-
ports have the right to demand an escort of torchbearers from
each village. If necessity compells nocturnal travel, the way-
farers associate themselves in bands, swinging lanterns, waving
torches, yelling, and beating gongs. The dread of the tiger
is so universal as to warrant the Chinese proverbial saying,
"The Korean hunts the tiger one half of the year, and the

128 Korea and Her Neighbors

tiger hunts the Korean the other half." As I have before re-
marked, the mandarins and yang-bans, with their trains,
quarter themselves on the magistracies, and eat the fat of the
land. Should they be compelled to have recourse to the dis-
comforts of an inn and the food of a village, they appropriate
the best of everything without paying for it. Hence the visit
of a foreigner armed with a kwan-ja is such an object of dread,
that on this land journey I never let it be known that I had
one, and on my second journey discarded it altogether, trust-
ing in both to the reputation for scrupulous honesty which I at
once established with my men to overcome the repugnance
which the innkeepers felt to receiving me.

The roads along which the traveller rides or trudges, at a
pace, in either case, of 3 miles an hour, are simply infamous.
There are few made roads, and those which exist are deep in
dust in summer and in mud in winter, where they are not
polished tracks over irregular surfaces and ledges of rock. In
most cases they are merely paths worn by the passage of
animals and men into some degree of legibility. Many of the
streams are unbridged, and most of the bridges, the roadways
of which are only of twigs and sod, are carried away by the
rains of early July, and are not restored till the middle of
October. In some regions traffic has to betake itself to fords
or ferries when it reaches a stream, with their necessary risks
and detentions. Even on the ** Six Great Roads" which
centre in the capital, the bridges are apt to be in such a rot-
ten condition that a mapii usually goes over in advance of his
horses to ascertain if they will bear their weight. Among the
mountains, roads are frequently nothing else than boulder-
strewn torrent beds, and on the best, that between Seoul and
Chemulpo, during the winter, there are tracts on which the
mud is from one to three feet deep. These infamous bridle
tracks, of which I have had extensive experience, are one of
the great hindrances to the development of Korea.

Among the worst of these is that part of the main road from

The Korean Pony— Roads and Inns 129

Seoul to Won-san which we followed from Sar-pang Kori for
two days to Sang-nang Dang, where we branched off for the
region known as Keum-Kang San, or the Diamond Mountain.
The earlier part of this route was through wooded valleys,
where lilies of the valley carpeted the ground, and over the
very pretty pass of Chyu-pha (1,300 feet), on the top of which
is a large spirit shrine, containing some coarsely painted
pictures of men who look like Chinese generals, the usual of-
ferings of old shoes, rags, and infinitesimal portions of rice,
and a tablet inscribed, ^'l, the spirit Song-an-chi, dwell in
this place." There, as at the various trees hung with rags,
and the heaps of stones on the tops of passes, the maj>u bowed
and expectorated, as is customary at the abodes of daemons.

More than once we passed not far from houses outside of
which the mutang or sorceress, with much feasting, beating of
drums, and clashing of cymbals, was exercising the daemon
which had caused the sickness of some person within. Por-
tions of the expensive feast prepared on these occasions are
offered to the evil spirit, and after the exorcism part of the
food so offered is given to the patient, in the belief that it is a
curative medicine, often seriously aggravating the disease, as
when a patient suffering from typhoid fever or dysentery is
stuffed with pork or kimshi / Recently a case came under the
notice of Dr. Jaisohn {So Chai pit) in Seoul, in which a man,
suffering from the latter malady, died immediately after eating
raw turnips, given him by the mutang after being offered to
the demons at the usual feast at the ceremony of exorcism.^

There is much wet rice along the route, as well as dry rice,
with a double line of beans between every two rows, and in
the rice revel and croak large frogs of extreme beauty, vivid
green with black velvet spots, the under side of the legs and
bodies being cardinal red. These appeared to be the prey of
the graceful white and pink ibis, the latter in the intensified
flush of his spring coloring.

A descent from a second pass leads to the Keum-San Kang,

130 Korea and Her Neighbors

a largish river in a rich agricultural region, and to the village
of Pan-pyong, where they were making in the rudest fashion
the great cast-iron pots used for boiling horse food, from iron
obtained and smelted 33 // farther north.

On two successive days there were tremendous thunder-
storms, the second succeeded, just as we were at the head of a
wild glen, by a brief tornado, which nearly blew over the
ponies, and snapped trees of some size as though they had
been matchwood. Then came a profound calm. The clouds
lay banked in pink illuminated masses on a sky of tender
green, cleft by gray mountain peaks. Mountain torrents
boomed, crashed, sparkled, and foamed, the silent woods re-
joiced the eye by the vividness of their greenery and their
masses of white and yellow blossom, and sweet heavy odors
enriched the evening air. On that and several other occasions,
I recognized that Korea has its own special beauties, which fix
themselves in the memory; but they must be sought for in
spring and autumn, and off the beaten track. Dirty and
squalid as the villages are, at a little distance their deep-eaved
brown roofs, massed among orchards, on gentle slopes, or on
the banks of sparkling streams, add color and life to the
scenery, and men in their queer white clothes and dress hats,
with their firm tread, and bundled-up women, with a shoggling
walk and long staffs, brought round with a semicircular swing
at every step, are adjuncts which one would not willingly dis-
pense with.

Before reaching the Paik-yang Kang, a broad, full river, an
affluent of the northern Han, with singularly abrupt turns
and perpendicular cliffs of a formation resembling that of the
Palisades on the Hudson River, we crossed one of the great
lava fields described by Consul Carles.^

This, which we crossed in a northeasterly direction, is a
rough oval about 40 miles by 30, a tableland, in fact, sur-

1 " Recent Journeys in Korea," Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society y May, 1896.

The Korean Pony— Roads and Inns 131

rounded by a deep chasm where the torrents which encircle
it meet the mountains. Its plateaux are from 60 to 100 feet
above these streams, which are all affluents of the Han,
and are supported on palisades of basalt, exhibiting the pris-
matic columnar formation in a very striking manner. In some
places the lava, which is often covered either with conglomerate
or a stiffish clay, is very near the surface, and large blocks of
it lie along the streams. It is a most fertile tract, and could
support a large population, but not being suited for rice, is
very little cultivated, and grows chiefly oats, millet, and beans,
which are not affected by the strong winds.

There are two Dolmens, not far from the Paik-yang Kang.
In one the upper stone is from 7 to 10 feet long, by 7 feet
wide, and 17 inches deep, resting on three stones 4 feet 2
inches high. The other is somewhat smaller. The openings
of both face due north.

After crossing the Paik-yang Kang, there 162 yards wide
and 16 feet deep, by a ferry boat of remarkably ingenious con-
struction, rendered necessary by the fact that the long bridge
over the broad stream was in ruins, and that the appropriation
for its reconstruction had been diverted by the local officials
to their own enrichment, we entered the spurs or ribs of the
great mountain chain which, running north and south, divides
Korea into two very unequal longitudinal portions at the vil-
lage of Tong-ku.

The scenery became very varied and pretty. Forests
clothed many of the hills with a fair blossoming undergrowth
untouched by the fuel gatherers' remorseless hook; torrents
flashed in foam through dark, dense leafage, or bubbled and
gurgled out of sight; the little patches of cultivation were
boulder-strewn; there were few inhabitants, and the tracks
called roads were little better than the stony beds of streams.
As they became less and less obvious, and the valleys more
solitary, our tergiversations were more frequent and prolonged,
the mapu drove the ponies as fast as they could walk, the fords

132 Korea and Her Neighbors

were many and deep, and two of the party were unhorsed in
them, still we hurried on faster and faster. Not a word was
spoken, but I knew that the men had tiger on the brai7i /

Blundering through the twilight, it was dark when we
reached the lower village of Ma-ri Kei, where we were to halt
for the night, two miles from the Pass of Tan-pa-Ryong, which
was to be crossed the next day. There the villagers could not
or would not take us in. They said they had neither rice nor
beans, which may have been true so late in the spring. How-
ever, it is, or then was, Korean law that if a village could
not entertain travellers it must convoy them to the next halt-
ing-place.

The mapu were frantic. They yelled and stormed and
banged at the hovels, and succeeded in turning out four sleepy
peasants, who were reinforced by four more a little farther on ;
but the torches were too short, and after sputtering and flaring,
went out one by one, and the fresh ones lighted slowly. The
mapu lost their reason. They thrashed the torchbearers with
their heavy sticks ; I lashed my mapu with my light whip for
doing it ; they yelled, they danced. Then things improved.
Gloriously glared the pine knots on the leaping crystal torrents
that we forded, reddening the white clothes of the men and
the stony track and the warm-tinted stems of the pines, and so
with shouts and yells and waving torches we passed up the
wooded glen in the frosty night air, under a firmament of
stars, to the mountain hamlet of upper Ma-ri Kei, consisting
of five hovels, only three of which were inhabited.

It is a very forlorn place and very poor, and it was an hour
before my party of eight human beings and four ponies were
established in its miserable shelter, though even that was wel-
come after being eleven hours in the saddle.

CHAPTER XI

DIAMOND MOUNTAIN MONASTERIES

IT was a glorious day for the Pass of Tan-pa-Ryong (1,320
feet above Ma-ri Kei), the western barrier of the Keum-
Kang San region. Mr. Campbell, of H.B.M.'s Consular
Service, one of the few Europeans who has crossed it, in his
charming narrative mentions that it is impassable for laden ani-
mals, and engaged porters for the ascent, but though the track
is nothing better than a torrent bed abounding in great boul-
ders, angular and shelving rocks, and slippery corrugations of
entangled tree roots, I rode over the worst part, and my ponies
made nothing of carrying the baggage up the rock ladders.
The mountain-side is covered with luxuriant and odorous vege-
tation, specially oak, chestnut, hawthorn, varieties of maple,
pale pink azalea, and yellow clematis, interspersed with a few
distorted pines, primulas and lilies of the valley covering the
mossy ground.

From the spirit shrine on the summit a lovely panorama un-
folds itself, billows of hilly woodland, gleams of water, wavy
outlines of hills, backed by a jagged mountain wall, attaining
an altitude of over 6,000 feet in the loftiest pinnacle of the
Keum-Kang San. A fair land of promise, truly ! But this
pass is a rubicon to him who seeks tlie Diamond Mountain
with the intention of immuring himself for life in one of its
many monasteries. For its name. Tan-pa, ''crop-hair," was
bestowed on it early in the history of Korean Buddhism for a
reason which remains. There those who have chosen the
cloister emphasize their abandonment of the world by cutting
off the ^Uopknot" of married dignity, or the heavy braid of
bachelorhood.

133

134 Korea and Her Neighbors

The eastern descent of the Tan-pa-Ryong is by a series of
zigzags, through woods and a profusion of varied and magnifi-
cent ferns. A long day followed of ascents and descents,
deep fords of turbulent streams, valley villages with terrace
cultivation of buckwheat, and glimpses of gray rock needles
through pine and persimmon groves, and in the late afternoon,
after struggling through a rough ford in which the water was
halfway up the sides of the ponies, we entered a gorge and
struck a smooth, broad, well-made road, the work of the
monks, which traverses a fine forest of pines and firs above a
booming torrent.

Towards evening *' The hills swung open to the light ";
through the parting branches there were glimpses of granite
walls and peaks reddening into glory; red stems, glowing in
the slant sunbeams, lighted up the blue gloom of the coniferse ;
there were glints of foam from the loud-tongued torrent below;
the dew fell heavily, laden with aromatic odors of pines, and
as the valley narrowed again and the blue shadows fell the
picture was as fair as one could hope to see. The monks,
though road-makers, are not bridge-builders, and there were
difficult fords to cross, through which the ponies were left to
struggle by themselves, the viapu crossing on single logs. In
the deep water I discovered that its temperature was almost
icy. The worst ford is at the point where the first view of
Chang-an Sa, the Temple of Eternal Rest, the oldest of the
Keum-Kang San monasteries, is obtained, a great pile of tem-
ple buildings with deep curved roofs, in a glorious situation,
crowded upon a small grassy plateau in one of the narrowest
parts of the gorge, where the mountains fall back a little and
afford Buddhism a peaceful shelter, secluded from the outer
world by snow for four months of the year.

Crossing the torrent and passing under a lofty Hong-Sal-
MuHy or "red arrow gate," significant in Korea of the patron-
age of royalty, we were at once among the Chang-an Sa build-
ings, which consist of temples large and small, a stage for

Diamond Mountain Monasteries 135

religious dramas, bell and tablet houses, stables for the ponies
of wayfarers, cells, dormitories, and a refectory for the abbot
and monks, quarters for servants and neophytes, huge kitchens,
a large guest hall, and a nunnery. Besides these there are
quarters devoted to the lame, halt, blind, infirm, and solitary;
to widows, orphans, and the destitute.

These guests, numbering 100, seemed well treated. Be-
tween monks, servants, and boys preparing for the priesthood
there may be 100 more, and 20 nuns of all ages, from girlhood
up to eighty-seven years. This large number of persons is
supported by the rent and produce of Church lands outside
the mountains, the contributions of pilgrims and guests, the
moneys collected by the monks, who all go on mendicant
expeditions, even up to the gates of Seoul, which at that time
it was death for any priest to enter, and benefactions from the
late Queen, which had become increasingly liberal.

The first impression of the plateau was that it was a wood-
yard on a large scale. Great logs and piles of planks were
heaped under the stately pines and under a superb Salisburia
adiantifoliay 17 feet in girth; 40 carpenters were sawing,
planing, and hammering, and 40 or 50 laborers were hauling
in logs to the music of a wild chant, for mendicant effort had
been resorted to energetically, with the result that the great
temple was undergoing repairs, almost amounting to a recon-
struction.

Of the forty-five monasteries and monastic shrines which
exist in the Diamond Mountain, enhancing its picturesqueness
and supplying it with a religious and human interest, Chang-an
Sa may be taken as a fair specimen of the three largest, as it
is undoubtedly the oldest, assuming the correctness of a his-
torical record quoted by Mr. Campbell, which gives the date
of its restoration by two monks, Yul-sa and Chin-h'yo, as a.d.
515, in the reign of Pop-heung, a king of Silla, then the most
important of the kingdoms, afterwards amalgamated as Korea.

The large temple is a fine old building of the type adapted

136 Korea and Her Neighbors

from Chinese Buddhist architecture, oblong, with a heavy tiled
roof 48 feet in height, with wings, deep eaves protecting
masses of richly-colored wood-carving. The lofty reticulated
roof is internally supported on an arrangement of heavy
beams, elaborately carved and painted in rich colors. The
panels of the doors, which serve as windows, and let in a
"dim religious light," are bold fretwork, decorated in colors
enriched with gold.

The roofs of the actual shrines are supported on wooden
pillars 3 feet in diameter, formed of single trees, and the
panelled ceilings are embellished with intricate designs in col-
ors and gold. In one Sakyamuni's image, with a distinctly
Hindu cast of countenance, and a look of ineffable abstrac-
tion, sits under a highly decorative reticulated wooden canopy,
with an altar before it, on which are brass incense burners,
books of prayer, and lists of those deceased persons for whose
souls masses have been duly paid for. Much rich brocade,
soiled and dusty, and many gonfalons, hang round this shrine.

The "Hall of the Four Sages" contains three Buddhas in
different attitudes of abstraction or meditation, a picture,
wonderfully worked in gold and silks in Chinese embroidery,
of Buddha and his disciples, for which the monks claim an
antiquity of fourteen centuries, and sixteen Lohans, with their
attendants. Along the side walls are a host of daemons and
animals. Another striking shrine is that dedicated to the
Lord of the Buddhistic Hell and his ten princes. The monks
call it the " Temple of the Ten Judges." This is a shrine of
great resort, and is much blackened by the smoke of incense
and candles, but the infernal torments depicted in the pictures
at the back of each judge are only too conspicuous. They
are horrible beyond conception, and show a diabolical genius
in hellish art, akin to that which inspired the creation of the
groups in the Inferno of tlie temple of Kwan-yin at Ting-hai
on Chusan, familiar to some of my readers.

Besides the ecclesiastical buildings and the common guest-

Diamond Mountain Monasteries 137

room, there are Government buildings marked with the Korean
national emblem, for the use of officials who go up to Chang-
an Sa for pleasure.

It was difficult for me to find accommodation, but eventually
a very pleasing young priest of high rank gave up his cell to
me. Unfortunately, it was next the guests' kitchen, and the
flues from the fires passing under it, I was baked in a tempera-
ture of 91°, although, in spite of warnings about tigers, the
dangers from which are by no means imaginary, I kept both
door and window open all night. The cell had for its furni-
ture a shrine of Gautama and an image of Kwan-yin on a
shelf, and a few books, which I learned were Buddhist classics,
not volumes, as in a cell which I occupied later, full of pic-
tures by no means inculcating holiness. In the next room,
equally hot, and without a chink open for ventilation, thirty
guests moaned and tossed all night, a single candle dimly
lighting a picture of Buddha and the dusty and hideous orna-
ments on the altar below.

A 9 P.M., midnight, and again at 4 a.m., which is the hour
at which the monks rise, bells were rung, cymbals and gongs
were beaten, and the praises of Buddha were chanted in an
unknown tongue. A feature at once cheerful and cheerless is
the presence at Chang-an Sa of a number of bright, active,
orphan boys from ten to thirteen years old, who are at present
servitors, but who will one day become priests.

It is an exercise of forbearance to abstain from writing much
about the beauties of Chang-an Sa as seen in two days of per-
fect heavenliness. It is a calm retreat, that small, green,
semicircular plateau which the receding hills have left, walling
in the back and sides with rocky precipices half clothed with
forest, while the bridgeless torrent in front, raging and thun-
dering among huge boulders of pink granite, secludes it from
all but the adventurous. Alike in the rose of sunrise, in the
red and gold of sunset, or gleaming steely blue in the prosaic
glare of midday, the great rock peak on the left bank, one of

138 Korea and Her Neighbors

the highest in the range, compels ceaseless admiration. The
appearance of its huge vertical topmost ribs has been well
compared to that of the " pipes of an organ," this organ-pipe
formation being common in the range ; seams and ledges half-
way down give roothold to a few fantastic conifers and azaleas,
and lower still all suggestion of form is lost among dense
masses of magnificent forest.

As I proposed to take a somewhat different route from Yu-
chom Sa (the first temple on the eastern slope) from that trav-
ersed by my predecessors, the Hon. G. W. Curzon and Mr.
Campbell, I left the ponies and baggage at Chang-an Sa, the
mapu, who were bent on ku-kyd?ig, accompanying me for part
of the distance, and took a five days' journey in the glorious
Keum-Kang San in unrivalled weather, in air which was elixir,
crossing the range to Yu-chom Sa by the An-mun-chai (Goose-
Gate Terrace), 4,215 feet in altitude, and recrossing it by the
Ki-cho, 3,570 feet.

Taking two coolies to carry essentials, and a na-my'd or
mountain chair with two bearers, for the whole journey, all
supplied by the monks, I walked the first stage to the monas-
teries of P'yo-un Sa and Chyang-yang Sa, the latter at an ele-
vation of about 2,760 feet. From it the view, which passes
for the grandest in Korea, is obtained of the ''Twelve Thou-
sand Peaks." There is assuredly no single view that I have
seen in Japan or even in Western China which equals it for
beauty and grandeur. Across the grand gorge through which
the Chang-an Sa torrent thunders, and above primaeval tiger-
haunted forests with their infinity of green, rises the central
ridge of the Keum-Kang San, jagged all along its summit, each
yellow granite pinnacle being counted as a peak.

On that enchanting May evening, when odors of paradise,
the fragrant breath of a million flowering shrubs and trailers,
of bursting buds, and unfolding ferns, rose into the cool dewy
air, and the silence could be felt, I was not inclined to enter
a protest against Korean exaggeration on the ground that the

Diamond Mountain Monasteries 139

number of peaks is probably nearer 1,200 than 12,000. Their
yellow granite pinnacles, weathered into silver gray, rose up
cold, stern, and steely blue from the glorious forests which
drape their lower heights — winter above and summer below —
then purpled into red as the sun sank, and gleamed above the
twilight, till each glowing summit died out as lamps which are
extinguished one by one, and the whole took on the ashy hue
of death.

The situation of P'yo-un Sa is romantic, on the right bank
of the torrent, and is approached by a bridge, and by passing
under several roofed gateways. The monastery had been
newly rebuilt, and is one mass of fretwork, carving, gilding,
and color, the whole decoration being the work of the monks.

The front of the ''Temple of the Believing Mind" is a
magnificent piece of bold wood-carving, the motif being the
peony. Every part of the building which is not stone or tile
is carved, and decorated in blue, red, white, green, and gold.
It may be barbaric, but it is barbaric splendor. There too is
a "Temple of Judgment," with hideous representations of tlie
Buddhist hells, one scene being the opening of the books in
which the deeds of men's mortal lives are written.

The fifty monks of P'yo-un Sa were very friendly, and not
impecunious. One gave up to me his oven-like cell, but repaid
himself for the sacrifice by indulging in ceaseless staring. The
wind bells of the establishment and the big bell have a melody
in their tones such as I have rarely heard, and when at 4 a. m.
bells of all sizes and tones announced that ''prayer is better
than sleep," there was nothing about the sounds to jar on the
pure freshness of morning. The monks are well dressed and
jolly, and have a well-to-do air which clashes with any pre-
tensions to asceticism. The rule of these monasteries is a
strict vegetarianism which allows neither milk nor eggs, and
in the whole region there are neither fowls nor domestic ani-
mals. Not to wound the prejudices of my hosts, I lived on
tea, rice, honey water, edible pine nuts, and a most satisfying

14<^ Korea and Her Neighbors

combination of pine nuts and honey. After a light breakfast
on these delicacies, the sub-abbot, took me to see his grand-
mother, a very bright pleasing woman of eighty, who came
from Seoul thirteen years ago and built a house within the
monastery grounds, in order to die in its quiet blessedness.
There I had to eat a second ethereal meal, and the hospitable
hostess forced on me a pot of exquisite honey and a bag of pine
nuts. These, the product of the Piims pinea, which grows
profusely throughout the range, furnish an important and nu-
tritious article of monkish diet, and are exported in quantities
as a luxury. They are rich and very oily, and turn rancid
soon after being shelled. The honey is also locally produced.
The beehives, which usually stand two togetlier in cavities in
the rocks, are hollow logs with clay covers mounted on blocks
of wood or stone. Leaving this friendly hostess and the seven
nuns of the nunnery behind, the sub-abbot showed me the
direction in which to climb, for road there is none, and at
parting presented me with a fan.

A visit to the Keum-Kang San elevates a Korean into the
distinguished position of a traveller, and many a young resi-
dent of Seoul gains this fashionable reputation. It is not as
containing shrines of pilgrimage, for most Koreans despise
Buddhism and its shaven mendicant priests, that these moun-
tains are famous in Korea, but for their picturesque beauties,
much celebrated in Korean poetry. The broad backbone of
the peninsula which has trended near to the east coast from
Puk-chong southwards has degenerated into tameness, when
suddenly Keum-Kang San, or the Diamond Mountain, with its
elongated mass of serrated, jagged, and inaccessible peaks,
and magnificent primaeval forest, occupying an area of about
32 miles in length by 22 in breadth, starts off from it near the
39th parallel of latitude in the province of Kang-won.
Buddhism, which, as in Japan, possesses itself of the fairest
spots in Nature, fixed itself in this romantic seclusion as early
as the sixth century a. d., and the venerable relics of the time

THE DIAMOND MOUNTAINS.

Diamond Mountain Monasteries 141

when for 1,000 years it was the official as well as the popular
cult of the country are chiefly to be found in the recesses of
this mountain region, where the same faith, though now dis-
credited, disestablished, and despised, still attracts a certain
number of votaries, and a far larger number of visitors and
so-called pilgrims, who resort to the shrines to indulge in ku-
ky'dng, a Korean term which covers pleasure-seeking, sight-
seeing, the indulgence of curiosity, and much else.

So far as I have been able to learn, there are only two
routes by which the Keum-Kang San can be penetrated, the
one which, after following the bed of a singularly rough tor-
rent, crosses the watershed at An-mun-chai, and on or near
which the principal monasteries and shrines are situated, and
the Ki-cho, a lower and less interesting pass. Both routes
start from Chang-an Sa. The forty-t\vo shrines are the head-
quarters of about 400 monks and about 50 nuns, who add to
their religious exercises the weaving of cotton and hempen cloth.
The lay servitors possibly number 1,000. The four great mon-
asteries, two on the eastern and two on the western slope,
absorb more than 300 of the whole number. All except the
high monastic officials beg through the country, alms-bowl in
hand, the only distinctive features of their dress being a very
peculiar hat and the rosary. They chant the litanies of
Buddha from house to house, and there are few who deny them
food and lodging and a few cash or a little rice.

The monasteries are presided over by what we should call
"abbots," superiors of the first or second class according to
the importance of the establishment. These Chong-sop and
Son-tong are nominally elected annually, but actually continue
in office for years, unless their conduct gives rise to dissatis-
faction. Beyond the confirmation of the election of the
Choiig-sop of those monasteries which possess a " Red Arrow
Gate "by the Board of Rites at Seoul, the disestablished
Church appears to be quite free from State interference. In
the case of restoring and rebuilding shrines, large sums are

142 Korea and Her Neighbors

collected in Seoul and the southern provinces, though faith
in Buddhism as a creed rarely exists.

On making inquiries through Mr. Miller as to the way in
which the number of monks is kept up, I learned that the ma-
jority are either orphans or children whose parents have given
them to the monasteries at a very early age owing to poverty.
These are more or less educated and trained by the monks.
It must be supposed that among the number there are a few
who escape from the weariness and friction of secular life into
a region in which seclusion and devotion are possible. Of
this type was the pale and interesting young priest who gave up
his room to me at Chang-an Sa, and two who accompanied us
to Yu-chom Sa, one of whom chanted Na Mu Ami Tabu
nearly the whole day as he journeyed, telling a bead on his
rosary for each ten repetitions. Mr. Miller asked him what
the words meant. ''Just letters," he replied ; *' they have no
meaning, but if you say them many times you will get to
heaven better." Then he gave Mr. Miller the rosary, and
taught him the mystic syllables, saying, ''Now, you keep the
beads, say the words, and you will go to heaven." Among
the younger priests several seemed in earnest. Others make
the monasteries (as is largely the case with the celebrated
shrines of Kwan-yin on the Chinese island of Pu-tu) a refuge
from justice or creditors, some remain desiring peaceful indo-
lence, and not a few are vowed and tonsured who came simply
to view the scenery of the Keum-Kang San and were too much
enchanted to leave it.

As to the moribund Buddhism which has found its most se-
cluded retreat in these mountains, it is overlaid with dgemonol-
atry, and like that of China is smothered under a host of semi-
deified heroes. Of the lofty aims and aspirations after right-
eousness which distinguish the great reforming sects of Japan,
such as the Monto, it knows nothing.

The monks are grossly ignorant and superstitious. They
know nearly nothing of the history and tenets of their own

Diamond Mountain Monasteries 143

creed, or of the purport of their liturgies, which to most of
them are just '* letters," the ceaseless repetition of which con-
stitutes ^' merit." Though some of them know Chinese, and
this knowledge means "education" in Korea, worship consists
in the mumbling or loud intoning of Sanscrit or Tibetan phrases,
of the meaning of which they have no conception. My impres-
sion of most of the monks was that their religious performances
are absolutely without meaning to them, and that belief, except
among a few, does not exist. The Koreans universally attrib-
ute to them gross profligacy, of the existence of which at one
of the large monasteries it was impossible not to become aware,
but between their romantic and venerable surroundings, the
order and quietness of their lives, their benevolence to the old
and destitute, who find a peaceful asylum with them, and in
the main their courtesy and hospitality, I am compelled to ad'
mit that they exercise a certain fascination, and that I prefer
to remember their virtues rather than their faults. My sympa-
thies go out to them for their appreciation of the beautiful, and
for the way in which religious art has assisted Nature by the
exceeding picturesqueness of the positions and decoration of
their shrines.

The route from Chang-an Sa to Yu-chom Sa, about 1 1 miles,
is mainly the rough beds of two great mountain torrents. Along
this, in romantic positions, are three large monasteries P'yo-un
Sa, Ma-ha-ly-an Sa, and Yu-chom Sa, besides a number of
smaller shrines, with from two to five attendants each, one
especially, Po-tok-am sa, dedicated to Kwan-yin, picturesque
beyond description — a fantastic temple built out from the face
of a cliff, at a height of 100 feet, and supported below the
centre by a pillar, round which a blossoming white clematis,
and an Ampelopsis Veitchiana, in the rose flush of its spring
leafage, had entwined their lavish growth.

No quadruped can travel this route farther than Chang-an
Sa. Coolies, very lightly laden, and chair-bearers carrying a
na-myo, two long poles with a slight seat in the middle, a noose

144 Korea and Her Neighbors

of rope for the feet, and light uprights bound together with a
wistaria rope to support the back, can be used, but the occu-
pant of the chair has to walk much of the way.

The torrent bed contracts above Chang-an Sa, opens out
here and there, and above P'yo-un Sa narrows into a gash, only
opening out again at the foot of the An-raun-chai. Surely the
beauty of that ii miles is not much exceeded anywhere on
earth. Colossal cliffs, upbearing mountains, forests, and gray
gleaming peaks, rifted to give roothold to pines and maples,
ofttimes contracting till the blue heaven above is narrowed to
a strip, boulders of pink granite 40 and 50 feet high, pines on
their crests and ferns and lilies in their crevices, round which
the clear waters swirl, before sliding down over smooth sur-
faces of pink granite to rest awhile in deep pink pools where
they take a more brilliant than an emerald green with the flash-
ing lustre of a diamond — rocks and ledges over which the crys-
tal stream dashes in drifts of foam, shelving rock surfaces on
which the decorative Chinese characters, the laborious work
of pilgrims, afford the only foothold, slides, steeper still, made
passable for determined climbers by holes, drilled by the monks,
and fitted with pegs and rails, rocks with bas-reliefs, or small
shrines of Buddha draped with flowering trailers, a cliff with
a bas-relief of Buddha, 45 feet high on a pedestal 30 feet broad,
rocks carved into lanterns and altars, whose harsh outlines are
softened by mosses and lichens, and above, huge timber and
fantastic peaks rising into

The summer heaven's delicious blue.
A description can be only a catalogue. The actuality was in-
toxicating, a canyon on the grandest scale, with every element
of beauty present.

This route cannot be traversed in European shoes. In Korean
string foot-gear, however, I never slipped once. There wiis
much jumping from boulder to boulder, much winding round
rocky projections, clinging to their irregularities with scarcely
foothold, and one's back to the torrent far below, and much

Diamond Mountain Monasteries 145

leaping over deep crevices and '* walking tight-rope fashion"
over rails. Wherever the traveller has to leave the difficulties
of the torrent bed he encounters those of slippery sloping rocks,
which he has to traverse by hanging on to tree trunks.

Our two priestly companions were most polite to me, giving
me a hand at the dangerous places, and beguiling the way by
legends, chiefly Buddhistic, concerning every fantastic and ab-
normal rock and pool, such as the Myo-kil Sang, the colossal
figure of Buddha referred to before, a pothole in the granite
bed of the stream, the wash-basin of some mythical Bodhi-
sattva, the Fire Dragon Pool, and the bathing-places of dragons
in the fantastic Man-pok-Tong (Grotto of Myriad Cascades),
and the Lion Stone which repelled the advance of the Japa-
nese invaders in 1592.

Beyond the third monastery the gorge becomes wider and
less fantastic, the forest thinner, allowing scattered glimpses of
the sky, and finally some long zigzags take the traveller up to
the open grassy summit of the An-mun-chai, on which plums,
pears, cherries, blush azaleas, and pink rhododendrons, which
had long ceased blooming below, were in their first flush of
beauty. To the west the difficult country of the previous
week's journey, gray granite, deep valleys, and tiger-haunted
forest faded into a veil of blue, and in the east, over diminish-
ing forest-covered ranges, gleamed the blue Sea of Japan,
more than 4,000 feet below.

On the eastern descent there are gigantic pines and firs,
some of them ruthlessly barked, and the long dependent
streamers of the gray-green Lycopodium Sieboldii with which
they are festooned, give the forest a funereal aspect. Of this
the peculiar fringed hats are made which are worn on occasion
by both monks and nuns. After many downward zigzags, the
track enters another rocky gorge with a fine torrent, in the
bed of which are huge ** potholes," shown as the bathing-
places of dragons, whose habits must have been much clean-
lier than those of the present inhabitants of the land.

146 Korea and Her Neighbors

The great monastery of Yu-chom Sa, with its many curved
roofs and general look of newness and wealth, is approached
by crossing a very tolerable bridge. The road, which passes
through a well-kept burial-ground, where the ashes of the
pious and learned abbots of several centuries repose under
more or less stately monuments, was much encumbered near
the monastery by great pine logs newly hewn for its restora-
tion, which was being carried out on a very expensive scale.

The monks made a difficulty about receiving us, and it was
not till after some delay, and the production of my kwan-ja,
that we were allotted rooms in the Government buildings for
the two days of our halt. After this small difficulty, they were
unusually kind and friendly, and one of the young priests, who
came over the An-mun-chai with us, offered Mr. Miller the
use of his cell on Sunday, saying that '* it would be a quieter
place than the great room to study his belief" !

I had hoped for rest and quiet on the following day, having
had rather a hard week, but these were unattainable. Besides
70 monks and 20 nuns, there were nearly 200 lay servitors
and carpenters, and all were bent upon ku-kydng, the first
European woman to visit the Keum-Kang San being regarded
as a great sight, and from early morning till late at night there
was no rest. The kang floor of my room being heated from
the kitchen, it was too hot to exist with the paper front closed,
and the crowds of monks, nuns, and servitors, finishing with
the carpenters, who crowded in whenever it was opened, and
hung there hour after hour, nearly suffocated me, the day
being very warm. The abbot and several senior monks dis-
cussed with Mr. Miller the merits of rival creeds, saying that
the only difference between Buddhists and ourselves is that
they don't kill even the smallest insect, while we disregard
what we call "animal life," and that we don't look upon
monasticism and other forms of asceticism as means of salva-
tion. They admitted that among their priests there are more
who live in known sin than strivers after righteousness.

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Diamond Mountain Monasteries 147

There are many bright busy boys about Yu-chom Sa, most
of whom had already had their heads shaved. To one who
had not, Che on-i gave a piece of chicken, but he refused it
because he was a Buddhist, on which an objectionable-looking
old sneak of a priest told him that it was all right to eat it so
long as no one saw him, but the boy persisted in his refusal.

At midnight, being awakened by the boom of the great bell
and the disorderly and jarring clang of innumerable small
ones, I went, at the request of the friendly young priest, our
fellow-traveller, to see him perform the devotions, which are
taken in turn by the monks.

The great bronze bell, an elaborate piece of casting of the
fourteenth century, stands in a rude, wooden, clay-floored
tower by itself. A dim paper lantern on a dusty rafter barely
lighted up the white-robed figure of the devotee, as he circled
the bell, chanting in a most musical voice a Sanscrit litany, of
whose meaning he was ignorant, striking the bosses of the bell
with a knot of wood as he did so. Half an hour passed thus.
Then taking a heavy mallet, and passing to another chant, he
circled the bell with a greater and ever-increasing passion of
devotion, beating its bosses heavily and rhythmically, faster
and faster, louder and louder, ending by producing a burst of
frenzied sound, which left him for a moment exhausted. Then,
seizing the swinging beam, the three full tones which end the
worship, and which are produced by striking the bell on the
rim, which is 8 inches thick, and on the middle, which is very
thin, made the tower and the ground vibrate, and boomed up
and down the valley with their unforgettable music. Of that
young monk's sincerity, I have not one doubt.

He led us to the great temple, a vast " chamber of imagery,"
where a solitary monk chanted before an altar in the light
from a solitary lamp in an alabaster bowl, accompanying his
chant by striking a small bell with a deer horn. The dim
light left cavernous depths of shadow in the temple, from
which eyes and teeth, weapons, and arms and legs of other-

148 Korea and Her Neighbors

wise invisible gods and devils showed uncannily. Behind the
altar is a rude and monstrous piece of wood-carving represent-
ing the upturned roots of a tree, among which fifty-three idols
are sitting and standing. As well by daylight as in the dim-
ness of midnight, there are an uncouthness and power about
this gigantic representation which are very impressive. Below
the carving are three frightful dragons, on whose faces the artist
has contrived to impress an expression of torture and defeat.

The legend of the altar-piece runs thus. When fifty-three
priests come to Korea from India to introduce Buddhism, they
reached this place, and being weary, sat down by a well under
a spreading tree. Presently three dragons came up from the
well and began a combat with the Buddhists, in the course of
which they called up a great wind which tore up the tree.
Not to be out-manoeuvred, each priest placed an image of Bud-
dha on a root of the tree, turning it into an altar. Finally,
the priests overcome the dragons, forced them into the well,
and piled great rocks on the top of it to keep them there,
founded the monastery, and built this temple over the dragons'
grave. On either side of this unique altar-piece is a bouquet
of peonies 4 feet wide by 10 feet high.

The "private apartments " of this and the other monasteries
consist of a living room, and very small single cells, each with
the shrine of its occupant, and all very clean. It must be re-
membered, however, that this easy, peaceful, luxurious life
only lasts for a part of the year, and that all but a few of the
monks must make an annual tramp, wallet and begging-bowl
in hand, over rough, miry, or dusty Korean roads, put up
with vile and dirty accommodation, beg for their living from
those who scorn their tonsure and their creed, and receive
"low talk " from the lowest in the land.

Just before we left, the old abbot invited us into his very
charming suite of rooms, and with graceful hospitality pre-
pared a repast for us with his own hands — square cakes of rich
oily pine nuts glued together with honey, thin cakes of

Diamond Mountain Monasteries

149

*^ popped" rice and honey, sweet cake, Chinese sweatmeat,
honey, and bowls of honey water with pine nuts floating on its
surface. The oil of these nuts certainly supplied the place of
animal food during my enforced abstinence from it, but rich
vegetable oil and honey soon pall on the palate, and the abbot
was concerned that we did not do justice to our entertainment.
The general culture produced by Buddhism at these monaster-
ies, and the hospitality, consideration, and gentleness of de-
portment, contrast very favorably with the arrogance, super-
ciliousness, insolence, and conceit which I have seen elsewhere
in Korea among the so-called followers of Confucius.

When we departed all the monks and laborers bade us a
courteous farewell, some of the older priests accompanying us
for a short distance.

After descending tlie slope by the well-made road which
leads down to the large monastery of Sin-kyei Sa, at the
northeast foot of the Keum-Kang San, we left it for a rough
and difficult westerly track, which, after affording some bright
gleams of the Sea of Japan, enters dense forest full of great
boulders and magnificent specimens of the Filix mas and
Osmuinda regalis. A severe climb up and down an irregular,
broken staircase of rock took us over the Ki-cho Pass, 3,700
feet in altitude, after which there is a tedious march of some
hours along bare and unpicturesque mountain-sides before
reaching the well-made path which leads through pine woods
to the beautiful plateau of Chang-an Sa. The young priest
had kept our baggage carefully, but the heat of his floor had
melted the candles in the boxes and had turned candy into
molasses, making havoc among photographic materials at the
same time !

CHAPTER XII

ALONG THE COAST

ON leaving Chang-an Sa for Won-san we retraced our route
as far as Kal-ron-gi, and afterwards crossed the Mak-pai
Pass, from which there is a grand view of the Keum-Kang San.
Much of a somewhat tedious day was spent in crossing a roll-
ing elevated plateau bordered by high denuded hills, on which
the potatoe flourishes at a height of 2,500 feet. The soil is
very fertile, but not being suited to rice, is very little occupied.
Crossing the Sai-kal-chai, 2,200 feet in altitude, the infamous
road descends on a beautiful alluvial valley, a rich farming
country, sprinkled with hamlets and surrounded by pretty hills
wooded with scrub oak, which in the spring is very largely
used for fertilizing rice fields. The branches are laid on the
inundated surface till the leaves rot off, and they are then re-
moved for fuel. In this innocent-looking valley the tiger
scare was in full force. A tiger, the people said, had carried
off a woman the previous week, and a dog and pig the pre-
vious night. It seemed incredible, yet there was a consensus
of evidence. Tigers are occasionally trapped in that region
by baiting a pit with a dog or pig, and the ensnared animal is
destroyed by poison or hunger to avoid injury to the skin,
which, if it is that of a fine animal, is very valuable.

A man is not the least ashamed of saying that he has not
nerve or pluck for tiger-hunting, which in Korea is a danger-
ous game, for the hunters are stationed at the head of a gorge,
usually behind brushwood, and sometimes behind rocks, the
big game, tigers and leopards, being driven up towards them by

150

Along the Coast 151

large bodies of men. When one realizes that the arms used
are matchlocks lighted by slow matches from cords wound
round the arm, and that the charge consists of three imper-
fectly rounded balls the size of a pea, and that, owing to the
thickness of the screen behind which the hunters are posted, the
game is only sighted when quite close upon them, one ceases to
wonder at the reluctance of the village peasants to turn out in
pursuit of a man-eater, even though the bones bring a very high
price as Chinese medicine.

We put up at the only inn in the region. It had no *' clean
room," but the landlord's wife gave up hers to me on con-
dition that I would not keep the door open for fear of a tiger.
The temperature was 93°, and to secure a little ventilation and
yet keep my promise, I tore the paper off the lattice-work of
the door. Mr. Miller described his circumstances thus. " I
wanted to sleep in the yard, but the host would not let me for
fear of tigers, so I had to sleep in a room 8 feet by 10 " (with
a hot floor), "with seven other men, a cat, and a bird. By
tearing the paper off a window near my head I saved myself
from death by suffocation, and could have had a good night's
rest had not the four horses been crowded into two stalls in the
kitchen. They found their quarters so close that they squealed,
kicked, bit, and fought all night, and their drivers helped them
to make night hideous by their yelling." Nobody slept, and
I had my full share of the unrest and disturbance, a bad
preparation for an eleven hours' ride on the next day, which
was fiercely hot, as were the remaining six days of the journey.

The road from this lofty tiger-haunted valley to the sea level
at Chyung-Tai is for the most part through valleys very sparsely
peopled. Much forest land, however, was being cleared for
the planting of cotton, and the peasant farmers are energetic
enough to carry their cultivation to a height of 2,000 feet.
[On nearly the whole of this journey I estimated that the land
is capable of supporting double its present population.] At
Hoa-chung, a prettily situated market-place, a student who

152 Korea and Her Neighbors

had successfully passed the literary examination at the Kwagga
in Seoul, surrounded by a crowd in bright colored festive
clothing, was celebrating his return by sacrificing at his
father's grave. On the various roads there were many proces-
sions escorting village students home from the great competi-
tion in the Royal presence at the capital, the student in
colored clothes, on a gaily-caparisoned horse or ass, with
music and flags in front of him, and friends, gaily dressed,
walking beside him. On approaching his village he was met
with flags and music, the headman and villagers, even the
women in gay apparel, going out to welcome him. After this
success he was entitled to erect a tall pole, with a painted
dragon upon it, in front of his house. Success was, how-
ever, very costly, and often hung the millstone of debt round
a man's neck for the remainder of his life. After " passing"
the student became eligible for official position, the sole object
of ambition to an " educated" Korean.

At Hoa-chung we turned eastwards, and took the main road
to the coast, attaining an altitude (uncorrected) of 3,117 feet
by continued ascents over rounded hills, which, when not ab-
solutely bare except for coarse, unlovely grasses, only produced
stunted hazel bush. After this an easy ascent among abso-
lutely denuded hills leads up to a spirit shrine of more than
usual importance, crowded with the customary worthless ex
votos, rags and old straw shoes. At that point the road makes
an altogether unexpected and surprising plunge over the bare
shoulders of a bare hill into Paradise !

This pass of the ''Ninety-nine Turns," Tchyu-Chi-chang,
deserves its name, the number of sharp zigzags not being ex-
aggerated, as in the case of the "Twelve Thousand Peaks."
It is so absolutely rocky, and so difficult in consequence, that
it is more passable in snow than in summer. Its abrupt turns
lead down a forest-clothed mountain ridge into a magnificent
gorge, densely wooded with oak, Spanish chestnut, weeping
lime, Abies exce/sa, and magnolia, looped together with the

Along the Coast i ^3

white mille-fleur rose. On the northern side rises Hoang-
chyong San, a noble mountain and conspicuous landmark,
much broken up into needles and precipices, and clothed
nearly to its summit with forests, of which the Finns sylvestris
is the monarch. The descent of the pass takes one hour and a
half, the road coming down upon a torrent 50 feet wide, only
visible in glints of foam here and there, amid its smothering
overgrowth of blossoming magnolia, syringa, and roses.

The filthy, miserable hamlet of Chyung-Tai, composed of
five hovels, all inns, was rather a comfortless close to a fatigu-
ing day. These houses are roofed, as in some other villages,
with thick slabs of wood heaped on each other, kept on, so
far as they are kept on, by big stones. The forest above on
the mountains is a Royal reservation, made so by the first king
of this dynasty, who built stone walls round the larger trees.

I had occasion to notice at Chyung-Tai, and in many other
places, the extreme voracity of the Koreans. They eat not
to satisfy hunger, but to enjoy the sensation of repletion. The
training for this enjoyment begins at a very early age, as I had
several opportunities of observing. A mother feeds her young
child with rice, and when it can eat no more in an upright
position, lays it on its back on her lap and feeds it again, tap-
ping its stomach from time to time with a flat spoon to ascer-
tain if further cramming is possible. " The child is father to
the man," and the adult Korean shows that he has reached the
desirable stage of repletion by eructations, splutterings, slap-
ping his stomach, and groans of satisfaction, looking round
with a satisfied air. A quart of rice, which when cooked is
of great bulk, is a laborer's meal, but besides there are other
dishes, which render its insipidity palatable. Among them
are pounded capscicum, soy, various native sauces of abomi-
nable odors, kirns hi, a species of sour kraut, seaweed, salt fish,
and salted seaweed fried in batter. The very poor only take
two meals a day, but those who can afford it take three and
four.

154 Korea and Her Neighbors

In this respect of voracity all classes are alike. The great
merit of a meal is not so much quality as quantity, and from
infancy onwards one object in life is to give the stomach as
much capacity and elasticity as is possible, so that four pounds
of rice daily may not incommode it. People in easy circum-
stances drink wine and eat great quantities of fruit, nuts, and
confectionery in the intervals between meals, yet are as ready
to tackle the next food as though they had been starving for a
week. In well-to-do houses beef and dog are served on large
trenchers, and as each guest has his separate table, a host can
show generosity to this or that special friend without helping
others to more than is necessary. I have seen Koreans eat
more than three pounds of solid meat at one meal. Large as
a *' portion " is, it is not unusual to see a Korean eat three and
even four, and where people abstain from these excesses it
may generally be assumed that they are too poor to indulge in
them. It is quite common to see from twenty to twenty-five
peaches or small melons disappear at a single sitting, and with-
out being peeled. There can be no doubt that the enormous
consumption of red pepper, which is supplied even to infants,
helps this gluttonous style of eating. It is not surprising
that dyspepsia and kindred evils are very common among
Koreans.

The Korean is omnivorous. Dog meat is in great request at
certain seasons, and dogs are extensively bred for the table.
Pork, beef, fish, raw, dried, and salted, the intestines of
animals, all birds and game, no part being rejected, are eaten
— a baked fowl, with its head, claws, and interior intact, being
the equivalent of ''the fatted calf." Cooking is not always
essential. On the Han I saw men taking fish off the hook,
and after plunging them into a pot of red pepper sauce, eating
them at once with their bones. Wheat, barley, maize, millet,
the Irish and sweet potato, oats, peas, beans, rice, radishes,
turnips, herbs, and wild leaves and roots innumerable, sea-
weed, shrimps, pastry made of flour, sugar, and oil, kimshi,

Along the Coast i^^

on the making of which tlie whole female population of the
middle and lower classes is engaged in November, a home-
made vermicelli of buckwheat flour and white of egg, largely
made up into a broth, soups, dried persimmons, sponge-cakes,
cakes of the edible pine nut and honey, of flour, sugar, and
sesamum seeds, onions, garlic, lily bulbs, chestnuts, and very
much else are eaten. Oil of sesamum is largely used in cook-
ing, as well as vinegar, soy, and other sauces of pungent and
objectionable odors, the basis of most of them being capsicums
and fermented rotten beans !

The magistracy of Thong-chhon, where we halted the next
day at noon, and where the curiosity of the people was abso-
lutely suffocating^ is a town sheltered from the sea, which is
within 2 miles, by a high ridge, and is situated prettily in a
double fold of hills remarkable for the artistic natural group-
ing of very grand pines.

At this point a spell of the most severe heat of the year set
in, and the remainder of the journey was accomplished in a
temperature ranging from 89° to 100° in the shade, and sel-
dom falling below 80° at night, phenomenal heat for the first
days of June. Taking advantage of it, the whole male popu-
lation was in the fields rice planting. Rice valleys, reaching
the unusual magnitude for Korea of from 3 to 7 miles in
breadth, and from 6 to 14 miles in length, sloping gently to
the sea, with innumerable villages on the slopes of the hills
which surround them, were numerous. Among them I saw,
for the only time, reservoirs for the storage of water for irriga-
tion. The pink ibis and the spotted green frog were abundant
everywhere. The country there has a look of passable pros-
perity, but the people are kept at a low level by official exac-
tions.

On this coast of Kong-won -Do are the P'al-kyong or '^ Eight
Views," which are of much repute in Korea. We passed two
of them. Su-chung Dai (The Place Between the Waters) is a
narrow strip of elevated white sand with the long roll of the

156 Korea and Her Neighbors

Pacific on the east, and the gentle plash of a lovely fresh-water
lake on the west. This lake of Ma-cha Tong, the only body
of fresh water which I saw in Korea, about 6 miles in length
by 2 in breadth, has mountainous shores much broken by bays
and inlets, at the head of each of which is a village half hid-
den among trees in the folds of the hills, while wooded conical
islets break the mirror of the surface. On the white barrier
of sand there are some fine specimens of the red-stemmed
Pinus sylvesfris, with a carpet of dwarf crimson roses and
pink lilies. Among the mountain forests are leopards, tigers,
and deer, and the call of the pheasant and the cooing of the
wild dove floated sweetly from the lake shore. It was an idyll
of peace and beauty. The other of the "Eight Views" is
rather a curiosity than a beauty, miles of cream-colored sand
blown up in wavy billows as high as the plumy tops of thou-
sands of fir trees which are helplessly embedded in it.

During the long hot ride of eleven hours, visions of the
evening halt at a peaceful village on the seashore filled my
mind, and hope made the toilsome climb over several promon-
tories of black basalt tolerable, even though the descents were
so steep that the mapu held the ponies up by their tails ! In
the early twilight, when the fierce sun blaze was over, in the
smoky redness of a heated evening atmosphere, when every
rock was giving forth the heat it had absorbed in the day,
across the stream which is at once the outlet of the lake and
the boundary between the provinces of Kang-won and Ham-
gyong, appeared a large, straggling, gray-roofed village, above
high-water mark, on a beach of white sand. Several fishing
junks were lying in shelter at the mouth of the stream.
Women were beating clothes and drawing water, and children
and dogs were rolling over each other on the sand, all more or
less idealized by being silhouetted in purple against the hot,
lurid sky.

As the enchantment of distance faded and Ma-cha Tong
revealed itself in plain prose, fading from purple into sober

Along the Coast 157

gray, the ideal of a romantic halt by the pure sea vanished.
A long, crooked, tumble-down narrow street, with narrower
off-shoots, heaps of fish offal and rubbish, in which swine,
mangy, blear-eyed dogs, and children, much afflicted with
skin disease, were indiscriminately routing and rolling, pools
covered with a thick brown scum, a stream which had degen-
erated into an open sewer, down which thick green slime
flowed tardily, a beach of white sand, the upper part of which
was blackened with fish laid out to dry, frames for drying fish
everywhere, men, women, children, all as dirty in person and
clothing as it was possible to be, thronging the roadway as we
approached, air laden with insupportable odors, and the vilest
accommodation I ever had in Korea, have fixed this night in
my memory.

The inn, if inn it was, gave me a room 8 feet by 6, and 5
feet 2 inches high. Ang-paks, for it was the family granary,
iron shoes of ploughs and spades, bundles of foul rags, sea-
weed, ears of millet hanging in bunches from the roof, pack
saddles, and worse than all else, rotten beans fermenting for
soy, and malodorous half-salted fish, just left room for my
camp-bed. This den opened on a vile yard, partly dunghill
and partly pigpen, in which is the well from which the women
of the house, with sublime sang-froid, draw the drinking
water ! Outside is a swamp, which throughout the night gave
off sickening odors. Every few minutes something was wanted
from my room, and as there was not room for two, I had every
time to go out into the yard. Wong's good-night was, <*I
hope you won't die." When I entered, the mercury was 87°.
After that, cooking for man and beast and the kang floor
raised it to 107°, at which point it stood till morning, vivify-
ing into revoltingly active life myriads of cockroaches and
vermin which revel in heat, not to speak of rats, which ran
over my bed, ate my candle, gnawed my straps, and would
have left me without boots, had I not long before learned to
hang them from the tripod of my camera. From nine years

158 Korea and Her Neighbors

of travelling, some of it very severe and comfortless, that
night stands out as hideously memorable.

The raison d'etre of Ma-cha Tong, and the numerous coast
villages which exist wherever a convenient shore and a protec-
tion for boats occur together, is the coast fishing. The fact
that a floating population of over 8,000 Japanese fishermen
make a living by fishing on the coast near Fusan shows that
there is a redundant harvest to be reaped. The Korean fish-
erman is credited with utter want of enterprise, and Mr.
Oiesen, in the Customs' report for Won-san for 1891, accuses
him of ''remaining content with such fish as will run into
crudely and easily constructed traps, set out along the shore,
which only require attention for an hour or so each day." I
must, however, say that each village that I passed possessed
from seven to twelve fishing junks, which were kept at sea.
They are unseaworthy boats, and it is not surprising that they
hug the shore. I believe that the fishing industry, with every
other, is paralyzed by the complete insecurity of the earnings
of labor and by the exactions of officials, and that the Korean
fisherman does not care to earn money of which he will surely
be deprived on any or no pretence, and that, along with the
members of the industrial classes generally, he seeks the pro-
tection of poverty.

The fish taken on this coast, when salted and dried, find
their way by boat to Won-san, and from thence over central
Korea, but in winter pedlars carry them directly inland from
the fishing villages. Salterns on the plan of those often seen
in China occur frequently near the villages. The operation of
making salt from sea water is absolutely primitive, and so rough
and dirty that the whiteness of the coarse product which re-
sults is an astonishment. In spite of heavy losses and heavier
"squeezings," this industry, which is carried on from May to
October, is a profitable one.

The road beyond that noisome halting-place traverses pic-
turesque country for many miles, being cut out of the sides of

Along the Coast 159

noble cliffs, or crosses basaltic spurs by arrangements resem-
bling rock ladders, keeping perforce always close to the sea,
now on dizzy precipices, then descending to firm hard stretches
of golden sand, or winding just above high-water mark among
colossal boulders which are completely covered with the Am-
pelopsis Veitchiafia, the creeper /c?r ^jc^^/Zf//^^ of Korea. The
sea was green and violet near the shore and a vivid blue in the
distance, and on its rippleless surface fishing boats with gray
hulls and brown sails lay motionless, for the rush and swirl of
tides, rising and falling as they do on the west coast from 25
to 38 feet, are unknown on the east coast, the variation between
high and low water being within 18 inches.

It was the hottest day of the year, and it was fortunate that
the prettily situated market-place of Syo-im had a new and
clean inn, in which it was possible to prolong the noonday
halt, and to get a good dinner of fresh and salt fish, vegetables,
herbs, sauces, and rice, for the sum of two cents gold. There
also, being the market-day, Mr. Miller succeeded in obtaining
cash for four silver _y^7^ from the pedlars.

After passing over a tedious sandy plain with a reserve of
fine firs, under which the countless dead of ages lie under great
sand mounds held together by nets or branches of trees, we
reached at sunset my ideal, a clean, exquisitely situated vil-
lage of nine houses, of which one was an inn where, contrary
to the general rule, we were made cordially welcome,^ The
nine families at Chin-pul possessed seven good-sized fishing
boats.

That inn is of unusual construction. There is a broad mud

1 A kwan-ja, being an official passport, lays a traveller open to the sus-
picion that, like officials, he will take the best of everything he can get
without paying for it, and this dread, added to a natural distrust of for-
eigners, led to more or less unwillingness to receive us in many places,
the mapu having to console the people by asseverating that I paid the full
price for all I got, and that even when I tore a sheet of paper from the
window I paid for it !

l6o Korea and Her Neighbors

platform of which fireplaces and utensils for cooking for man
and beast occupy one half, and the other is matted for sleeping
and eating. My room, which had no window, but was clean
and plastered, opened on this, and as the mercury was at iii°
until 3 A. M. owing to the heated floor, I sat at the door nearly
all night, so the dawn and an early start, and the coolness of
the green and violet shades of the almost rippleless ocean,
which laved its varied shore of bays, promontories, and lofty
cliffs, were very welcome.

A valley opening on the sea which it took five hours to skirt
and cross, covered with grain and newly planted rice, is liter-
ally fringed with villages, which look comfortably prosperous
in spite of exactions. A smaller valley contains about 3,000
acres of rice land only, and on the slopes surrounding all these
are rich lands, bearing heavy crops of wheat, millet, barley,
cotton, tobacco, castor oil, sesamum, oats, turnips, peas, beans,
and potatoes. The ponies are larger and better kept in that
region, and the red bulls are of immense size. The black pig,
however, is as small and mean as ever. The crops were clean,
and the rice dykes and irrigation channels well kept. Good
and honest government would create as happy and prosperous
a people as the traveller finds in Japan, the soil being very
similar, while Korea has a far better climate.

During the land journey from Chang-an Sa to Won-san I
had better opportunities of seeing the agricultural methods of
the Koreans than in the valleys of the Han. As compared
with the exquisite neatness of the Japanese and the diligent
thriftiness of the Chinese, Korean agriculture is to some extent
wasteful and untidy. Weeds are not kept down in the summer
as they ought to be, stones are often left on the ground, and
there is a raggedness about the margins of fields and dykes
and a dilapidation about stone walls which is unpleasing to the
eye. The paths through the fields are apt to be much worn
and fringed with weeds, and the furrows are not so straight as
they might be. Yet on the whole the cultivation is much bet-

Along the Coast i6l

ter and the majority of the crops far cleaner than I had been
led to expect. Domestic animals are very few, and very little
fertilizing material is applied to the ground except in the neigh-
borhood of Seoul and other cities, a fact which makes its ex-
ceeding fertility very noteworthy.

The rainfall is abundant but not excessive, and the desolat-
ing floods which afflict Korea's opposite neighbor, Japan, are
as unknown as earthquakes. Irrigation is only necessary for
rice, which is the staple of Korea. Except on certain rice
lands, two crops a year are raised throughout central and south-
ern Korea, the rice being planted in June, or rather trans-
planted from the nurseries in which it is sown in May, and is
harvested early in October, when the ground is ploughed and
barley or rye is sown, which ripens in May or early June of
the next year, after which water is let in, the field is again
ploughed while flooded, and the rice plants are set out in rows
of *' clumps," two or four or even six plants in a *' clump."
Where only one crop is raised, the rice field lies fallow from
the end of October till the following May. In wheat, barley,
or rye fields the sowing is in October, and the harvest in May
or June, after which beans, peas, and other vegetables are sown.
Along the "great roads," as the crops approach ripeness, ele-
vated watch-sheds are erected in the fields as safeguards against
depredations. The crops, on the whole, are very fine, and
would be immense were it not for the paucity of fertilizing
material.

Agricultural implements are rude and few. A wooden
ploughshare with a removable iron shoe is used which turns
the furrows the reverse way to ours. A wooden spade, also
shod with iron, is largely used for heavy work. This, which
excites the ridicule of foreigners as a gratuitous waste of man
power, is furnished with several ropes attached to the blade,
each of which is jerked by a man while another man guides
the blade into the ground by its long handle. The other im-
plements are the same sort of sharp-pointed sharp hoe which is

i62 Korea and Her Neighbors

in use in China, and which in the hands of the eastern
peasant fills the place of shovel, hoe, and spade, a reaping
hook, a short knife, a barrow, and a bamboo rake which is
largely used in the denudation of the hills.

Grain, peas, and beans are threshed out with flails as often
as not in the roadway of a village, while the grinding of flour
and the hulling of rice are accomplished by the stone quern,
and the stone or wooden mortar, with an iron pestle worked
by hand or foot, the ^^ pang- a,'' or, as has been previously
described, by a " ;;////," or water ^^ pajig-a.'' Rice is threshed
by beating the ears over a board, and all grain is winnowed by
being thrown up in the wind.

The pony is not used in agriculture. Ploughing is done by
the powerful, noble, tractable, Korean bull, a cane ring placed
in his nostrils when young rendering him manageable even by
a young child. He is four years in attaining maturity, and is
now worth from ^3 to ^£4, his value having been enhanced
by the late war and the prevalence of rinderpest in recent
years. Milk is not an article of diet. In some districts ox-
sleds of very simple construction are used for bringing down
fuel from the hills and produce from the fields, and at Seoul
and a itw other cities rude carts are to be seen ; but ponies,
men, and bulls are the means of transport for produce and
goods, the loads being adjusted evenly on wooden pack
saddles, or in the case of small articles in panniers of plaited
straw or netted rope. In the latter, ingeniously made to open
at the bottom and discharge their contents, manure is carried
to the fields. Both bulls and ponies are shod with iron. The
pony carries from 160 to 200 lbs. Sore backs are lamentably
common.

The breed of pigs is very small. Pigs are always black and
loathsome. Their bristles stand up along their backs, and they
are lean, active, and of specially revolting habits. The clogs
are big, usually buff, long-haired, and cowardly, and cari-
cature the Scotch collie in their aspect. The fowls are

Along the Coast 163

plebeian, and for wildness, activity, and powers of flight are
unequalled in my experience. Ducks are not very common,
and geese are kept chiefly as guards, and for presentation at
weddings as emblems of fidelity. The few sheep bred in
Korea are reserved for Royal sacrifices. I have occasionally
seen mutton on tables in Seoul, but it has been imported from
Ciiefoo. The villages which make their living altogether by
agriculture are usually off the high roads, those which the
hasty traveller passes through depending as much on the enter-
taining of wayfarers as on the cultivation of the land. In
these, nearly every house has a covered shelf in front at which
food can be obtained, but lodging is not provided, and the
villages which can feed and lodge beasts as well as men are
few. The fact that the large farming villages are off the road
gives an incorrect notion of the population of Korea.

On the slope of a hillside above a pleasant valley lies the
town of An-byong, once, judging from the extent of its decay-
ing walls and fortifications, and the height of its canopied but
ruinous gate-towers, a large city. The ya^nen and other Gov-
ernment buildings are well kept, and being in good repair, are
in striking contrast to those previously seen on the route.
The ''main street" is, however, nothing but a dirty alley.
The towni has a diminishing population, and though it makes
some paper from the Brouso7iettia Papyriferay and has several
schools, and exchanges rice and beans for foreign cottons at
Won-san, it has a singularly decaying look, and is altogether
unworthy of its position as being one of the chief places in the
province of Ham-gyong. Outside of it the road crosses a
remarkably broad river bed by a bridge 720 feet long, so
dilapidated that the ponies put their feet through its rotten
sods several times.

From An-byong to Ta-ri-mak, a short distance from Nam-
San on the main road from Seoul to Won-san, is a long and
tedious ride through thinly peopled country and pine woods
full of graves. We spent two nights there at a very noisy and

164 Korea and Her Neighbors

disagreeable inn, in which privacy was unattainable and the
vermin were appalling. There the host was specially unwill-
ing to take in foreigners, on the ground that we should not
pay, a suspicion which irritated our friendly mapu, who
vociferated at the top of their voices that we paid *' even for
the smallest things we got." The swinging season was at hand,
each amusement having its definite date for beginning and
ending, and in every village swings were being erected on tall
straight poles. Wong could never resist the temptation of
taking a swing, which always amused the people.

At this inn there were some musical performers who made
both night and day wearisome to me, but gave great pleasure
to others. I have not previously mentioned my sufferings on
the Han from the sounds produced by itinerant musicians, and
by the mutaiig or sorceress and her coadjutors ; but, as has
been forcibly brought out in a paper on Korean music by Mr.
Hulbert in the Korean Repository,^ the sounds are peculiar
and unpleasing, because we neither know nor feel what they
are intended to express, and we bring to Korean music not the
Korean temperament and training but the Western, which de-
mands *' time " as an essential. It maybe added that the
Koreans, like their neighbors the Japanese, love our music as
little as we love theirs, and for the same reason, that the ideas
we express by it are unfamiliar to them.

One reason of the afflictive and discordant sounds is that
the gamut of Korea differs from the musical scale of European
countries, with the result that whenever music seems to be
trembling on the verge of a harmony, a discord assails the ear.
The musical instruments are many, but they are not carefully
finished. Among instruments of percussion are drums, cym-
bals, gongs, and a species of castanet. For wind instruments
there are unkeyed bugles, flutes, and long and short trumpets;
and the stringed instruments are a large guitar, a twenty-five
stringed guitar, a mandolin, and a five-stringed violin. The
1 February, 1896.

Along the Coast 165

discord produced by a concert of several of these instruments
is lieard in perfection at the opening and closing of the gates
of cities.

There are three classes of Korean vocal music, the first being
the Si-Jo or "classical " style, andante tremtdoso, and " punc-
tuated with drums," the drum accompaniment consisting mainly
of a drum beat from time to time as an indication to the vo-
calist that she has quavered long enough upon one note. The
Si'jo is a slow process, and is said by the Koreans to require
such long and patient practise that only -the dancing girls can
excel in it, as they alone have leisure to cultivate it. One
branch of it deals with convivial songs, of one of which I
give a translation from the gifted pen of the Rev. H. B. Hul-
bert of Seoul. ^

The Korean, prisoned during the winter in his small, dark,
dirty, and malodorous rooms, with neither a glowing fireside

J I

'Twas years ago that Kim and I
Struck hands and swore, however dry
The lip might be or sad the heart,
The merry wine should have no part
In mitigating sorrow's blow
Or quenching thirst. 'Twas long ago.

II

And now I've reached the flood-tide mark

Of life ; the ebb begins, and dark

The future lowers. The tide of wine

Will never ebb. 'Twill aye be mine

To mourn the desecrated fane

Where that lost pledge of youth lies slain.

Ill

Nay, nay, begone ! The jocund bowl
Again shall bolster up my soul
Against itself. What, good-man, hold!
Canst tell me where red wine is sold ?
Nay, just beyond that peach tree there ?
Good luck be thine, I'll thither fare.

i66

Korea and Her Neighbors

nor brilliant lamp to mitigate the gloom, welcomes spring with
lively excitement, and demands music and song as its natural ac-
companiment— song that shall express the emancipation, breath-
ing space, and unalloyed physical pleasure which have no coun-
terpart in our English feelings. Thus a classical song runs : —

The willow catkin bears the vernal blush of summer's dawn

When winter's night is done ;
The oriole, who preens herself aloft on swaying bough,

Is summer's harbinger ;
The butterfly, with noiseless fiil-ful of her pulsing wing,

Marks off the summer hour.
Quick, boy, thy zither ! Do its strings accord ? 'Tis well.

Strike up ! / must have song.

The second style of Korean vocal music is the Ha CKi or
popular. The most conspicuous song in this class is the A-ra-
rilng, of 782 verses. It is said that the A-ra-riing holds to the
Korean in music the same place that rice does in his food —
all else being a mere appendage. The tune, but with the trills
and quavers, of which there are one or two to each note, left
out, is given here, though Mr. Hulbert, to whom I am greatly
indebted, calls it '* a very weak attempt to score it."

a - ra-riing

i^^^

i^

m.

A - ra-riing a - ra-riing a - ra - ri - o -

61

- sa pai ddi-6 - ra. Mun-gyuugsai-chai pak-tala-u.

.nu - - - houg-do-kai paug-maing-i ta na-kan-da.

The chorus of A-ra-ri'mg is invariable, but the verses wliich
are sung in connection with it take a wide range through the
fields of lyrics, epics, and didactics.

There is a third style, which is between the classical and
the popular, but which hardly deserves mention.

Along the Coast 167

To my thinking, the melancholy which seems the motif of
most Oriental music becomes an extreme plaintiveness in that
of Korea, partly due probably to the unlimited quavering on
one note. While what may be called concerted music is
torture to a Western ear, solos on the flute ofttimes combine a
singular sweetness with their mournfulness and suggest ** Far-
off Melodies." Love songs are popular, and there is a tender
grace about some of them, as well as an occasional glint of
humor, as indicated by the last line of the third stanza of one
translated by Mr, Gale.^ The allusions to Nature generally

1 LOVE SONG
Farewell's a fire that burns one's heart,
And tears are rains that quench in part,
But then the winds blow in one's sighs,
And cause the flames again to rise.

My soul I've mixed up with the wine.

And now my love is drinking,

Into his orifices nine

Deep down its spirit's sinking.

To keep him true to me and mine,

A potent mixture is the wine.

Silvery moon and frosty air.
Eve and dawn are meeting;
Widowed wild goose flying there,
Hear my words of greeting!
On your journey should you see
Him I love so broken-hearted.
Kindly say this word for me,
That it's death when we are parted.
Flapping off the wild goose clambers,
Says she will if she remembers.

Fill the ink-stone, bring the water.
To my love I'll write a letter;
Ink and paper soon will see
The one that's all the world to me,
While the pen and I together,
Left behind, condole each other.

l68 Korea and Her Neighbors

show a quick and sympathetic insight into lier beauties, and occa-
sional stanzas, of which the one cited is among several translated
by Mr. Hulbert, have a delicacy of touch not unworthy of an
Elizabethan poet.^ The Korean Repository is doing a good
work in making Korean poetry accessible to English readers.

There was not, however, any flute music at Ta-ri-mak.
There were classical songs, with a direful drum accompani-
ment, and a wearisome repetition of the A-ra-rilng, continuing
all day and late into the hot night.

A few pedlars passed by, selling tobacco, necessaries, and
children's toys, the latter rudely made, and only attractive in
a country in which artistic feeling appears dead. There are
shops in Seoul, Phyong-yang, and other cities devoted to the
sale of such toys, painted in staring colors, and illustrative
chiefly of adult life. There are also monkeys, puppies, and
tigers on wheels, all for boys, and soldiers in European uni-
forms have appeared during the recent military craze, and
boys are very early taught to look forward to official life by
representations of mandarins' chairs, red-tasselled umbrellas,
and fringed hats. Girls being of comparatively small account,
toys specially suited to them are not many.

Japanese lucifer matches, which, when of the cheap sort,
seem only slightly inflammable, as I have several times used a
whole box without igniting one, were in the stock of the ped-
lars, and are making rapid headway in the towns, but even so
near Won-san as Ta-ri-mak is, the people were still using flint
and steel to light chips of wood dipped in sulphur, though the
cheap and smoky kerosene lamp has displaced the tall, upright
candlestick and the old-fashioned dish lamps there and in very
many other country places.

> I asked the spotted butterfly
To take me on his wing and fly
To yonder mountain's breezy side.
The trixy tiger moth I'll ride
As home I come.

Along the Coast 169

From the high road from Seoul to Won-san we diverged at
Nam-San to visit the large monastery of Sok-wang Sa, famous
as being the place where, in the palmy days of Korean
Buddhism, Atai-jo, the first king of the present dynasty, was
educated and lived. The monastery itself, with its temples,
was erected by this king to mark the spot where, 504 years
ago, he received that supernatural message to rule in virtue of
which his descendant occupies the Korean throne to-day. In
this singularly beautiful spot Atai-jo's early years were spent
in religious exercises, study, and preparation, and many of
the superb trees which adorn the grand mountain clefts in
which Sok-wang Sa is situated are said to have been planted
by his hands. His regalia and robes of state are preserved in
a building by themselves, which no one is allowed to enter
except the duly appointed attendant. A bridle track along-
side of a clear mountain stream leads through very pretty and
prosperous-looking country, and over wooded foothills for
some miles to the base of a fine mountain range. We passed
for a length of time through rich and heavily-timbered monas-
tic property, then the beautiful valley narrowed, and by a
*' Red Arrow Gate " we entered on a smooth broad road, on
which the sun glinted here and there through the heavy foliage
of an avenue of noble pines, a gap now and then giving en-
trancing glimpses of the deep delicious blue of the summer
sky, of a grand gorge dark with pines, firs, and the exotic
Cleyera Japoiiica and zelkawa, brightened by the tender
green of maples and other deciduous trees, and by flashes
of foam from a torrent booming among great moss-covered
boulders.

Then came bridges with decorative roofs, abbots' tomb-
stones under carved and painted canopies, inscribed stone
tablets, glorious views of a peaked, forest-clothed mountain
barring the gorge, and as the pines of the avenue fell into
groups at its close, and magnificent zelkawas, from whose
spreading branches white roses hung in graceful festoons, over-

lyo Korea and Her Neighbors

arched the road, a long irregular line of temples and monastic
buildings appeared, clinging in singular picturesqueness to the
sides of the ravine, which there ascends somewhat rapidly
towards the mountain, which closes it.

An abbot, framed in the doorway of a quaint building, and
looking like a picture of a portly, jolly, mediaeval friar, wel-
comed us, and he and his monks regaled us with honey water in
the large guest- hall, but simultaneously produced a visitors' book
and asked us how much we were going to pay, the sum being
duly recorded. The grasping ways of these monks, who fleeced
the mapu so badly as to make them say they '' had fallen
among thieves," contrast with the friendly hospitality of their
brethren of the Diamond Mountain, and can only be accounted
for by the contaminating influences of a treaty port, from
which they are distant only a long day's journey !

** See the sights first and then pay," they said, the glorious
views and the quaint picturesqueness of the monastic buildings
clustering on the crags above the cataracts being the sight par
excellence. It was refreshing to turn from the contemplation
of the sensual, acquisitive, greedy faces of most of the monks
to Nature at her freshest and fairest, on one of the loveliest
days of early June.

The interiors of the temples are shabby and dirty, the paint
is scaling off the roofs, and the floors and even the altars were
hidden under layers of herbs drying for kitchen use. Besides
the tablet to the first king of the present dynasty in a hand-
some tablet-house, the noteworthy ''sight" to be seen is a
small temple dedicated to the "Five Hundred Disciples."
Sok-wang Sa is not a holy place, and the artist who carica-
tured the devout and ascetic followers of the ascetic Sakymuni
has bequeathed a legacy of unhallowed suggestion to its in-
mates !

The "Five Hundred " are stone images not a foot in height,
arranged round the dusty temple in several tiers, each one
with a silk cap on, worn with more or less of a jaunty air on

Along the Coast 171

one side of the head or falling over the brow. The variety of
features and expression is wonderful ; all Eastern nationalities
are represented, and there are not two faces or attitudes
alike. The whole display shows genius, though not of a high
order.

Among the infinite variety, one figure has deeply set eyes,
an aquiline nose, and thin lips; another a pug nose, squinting
eyes, and abroad grinning mouth; one is Mongolian, another
Caucasian, and another approximates to the Negro type. Here
is a stout, jolly fellow, with a leer and a broad grin suggestive
of casks of porter and the archaic London drayman ; there is
an idiot with drooping head, receding brow and chin, and a
vacant stare ; here again is a dark stage villain, with red
cheeks and a cap drawn low over his forehead ; then Mr.
Pecksniff confronts one with an air of sanctimoniousness obvi-
ously difficult to retain ; Falstaff outdoes his legendary jollity ;
and priests and monks of all nations leer at the beholders
from under their jaunty caps. It is an exhibition of unsancti-
fied genius. Nearly all the figures look worse for drink, and
fatuous smiles, drunken leers, and farcical grins are the rule,
the effect of all being aggravated by the varied and absurd
arrangements of the caps. The grotesqueness is indescribable,
and altogether '' unedifying."

It was a great change to get on the broad main road to
Won-san, and to see telegraph poles once more. There was
plenty of goods and passenger traffic across the fine plain
covered with rice and grain, margined by bluffs, and dotted
with what have obviously once been islands, near which Won-
san is situated.

Where the road is broad, a high heap of hardened mud
runs along the centre, with hardened mud corrugations on
either side ; where narrow, it is merely the top of a rice dyke.
The bridges are specially infamous ; in fact, they were so rot-
ten that the mapu would not trust their ponies upon them, and
we forded all the streams. Yet this road, which I found

172 Korea and Her Neighbors

equally bad at the three points at which I touched it, is one of
the leading thoroughfares by which goods pass from the east to
the west coast and vice versa, — tobacco, copper, salt fish, sea-
weed, galena, and hides from the east, and foreign shirtings,
watches, and miscellaneous native and foreign articles from the
west.

The heat of the sun was but poorly indicated by a shade
temperature of 84°, and it was in his full noontide fierceness
that we reached the huddle of foul and narrow alleys and ir-
regular rows of thatched shops along the high road which
make up the busy and growing Korean town of Won-san,
which, with an estimated population of 15,000 people, lies
along a strip of beach below a pine-clothed bluff and ranges
of mountains, then green to their summits, but which I saw in
December of the same year in the majesty of the snow which
covers them from November to May. The smells were fearful,
the dirt abominable, and the quantity of wretched dogs and of
pieces of bleeding meat blackening in the sun perfectly sicken-
ing. This aspect of meat, produced by the mode of killing
it, has made foreigners entirely dependent on the Japanese
butchers in Seoul and elsewhere. The Koreans cut the throat
of the animal and insert a peg in the opening. Then the
butcher takes a hatchet and beats the animal on the rump until
it dies. The process takes about an hour, and the beast suffers
agonies of terror and pain before it loses consciousness. Very
little blood is lost during the operation ; the beef is full of it,
and its heavier weight in consequence is to the advantage of
the vendor.

Then came a level stretch of about a mile, much planted
with potatoes, glimpses of American Protestant mission-houses
in conspicuous and eligible positions (eligible, that is, for
everything but mission work), and the uneven Korean road
glided imperceptibly into a broad gravel road, fringed on both
sides with neat wooden houses standing in gardens, which
gradually thickened into the neatest, trimmest, and most at-

Along the Coast 173

tractive town in all Korea, the Japanese settlement of the
treaty port of Won-san, opened to Japanese trade in 1880 and
to foreign trade generally in 1883.

Broad and well-kept streets, neat wharves, trim and fairly
substantial houses, showing the interior dollishness and dainti-
ness characteristic of Japan, a large and very prominent
Japanese Consulate in Anglo-Japanese style, the offices of the
*' N.Y.K.," the Japan Mail Steamship Company (an abbrevia-
tion as familiar to residents in the Far East as "P. & O."), a
Japanese Bank of solid reputation, Customs' buildings, of
which a neat reading-room forms a part, neat Japanese shops
where European articles can be bought at moderate prices, a
large schoolhouse, with a teacher in European dress, and
active manikins and hobbling but graceful women, neither
veiled nor muffled up, are the features of this pleasant Jap-
anese colony, which is so fortunate as to have no history, its
progress, though not rapid, having been placid and peaceful,
not marred by friction either with Koreans or foreigners of
other nationalities ; and even the recent war, though it led to
the removal of the Chinese consul and his countrymen, an in-
significant fraction of the population, had left no special
traces, except that the enormous wages paid to transport coolies
by the Japanese had enabled them to gamble with yen instead
of cash !

I was most hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Gale of the
American Presbyterian Mission. Mr. Gale's work was the im-
portant one of the preparation of a dictionary of the Korean
language in Korean, Chinese, and English, which was pub-
lished in 1897.

During the twelve days which I spent at Won-san I made a
junk excursion in Yung-hing or Broughton Bay, in the south-
west corner of which the port is situated. It is a superb bay,
with an area of fully 40 square miles, a depth of from 6 to 12
fathoms, with good holding ground, never freezes in winter,
is sheltered by promontories and mountains from the winds of

174 Korea and Her Neighbors

every quarter, and its entrance is protected by islands. To
English readers it is probable that the sole interest of this fine
bay lies in the fact that its northern arm, Port Lazareff, which
was the object of my cruise, is the harbor which Russia is
credited with desiring to gain possession of for the terminus
of her Trans-Siberian Railway. Whether this be so or no, or
whether Port Shestakoff, on the same coast, but 60 miles
farther north, is more defensible and better adapted for a
naval as well as a terminal port, the time has gone by for
grudging to Russia an outlet on the Pacific, and I for one
should prefer it on the coast of eastern Korea than on the
northern shore of the Yellow Sea.

The head of Port Lazareff is about 16 miles from Won-san,
and is formed by the swampy outlets of the river Dun-gan,
among the many branches of which lie inhabited, low-lying
islands. There are rude but extensive salt works at the shal-
lows in which this noble inlet terminates, after receiving
several streams besides the Dun-gan. Port Lazareff has, in
addition, abundant supplies of water from natural springs.
The high hills which surround the bay are grassy to their sum-
mits, but there is very little wood, and the villages are small
and far between. Game is singularly abundant. Pheasants
are nearly as plentiful as sparrows are with us, the wary
turkey bustard abounds, there are snipe in the late summer,
and pigeons, plover, and water-hen are common. In spring
and autumn wild fowl innumerable crowd the waters of every
stream and inlet, swans, teal, geese, and ducks darkening the
air, which they rend with their clamor as the sportsman in-
vades their haunts.

A Korean junk does not impress one by its seaworthiness,
and it is not surprising that the junkmen hug the shore and
seek shelter whenever a good sailing breeze comes on. She is
built without nails, iron, or preservative paint, and looks
rather like a temporary and fortuitous aggregation of beams
and planks than a deliberate construction. Two tall, heavy

Along the Coast ly^

masts fixed by wedges among the timbers at the bottom of the
boat require frequent attention, as they are always swaying and
threatening to come down. The sails are of matting, with a
number of bamboos running transversely, with a cord attached
to each, united into one sheet, by means of which tacking is
effected, or rather might be. Practically, navigation consists
in running before a light breeze, and dropping the mass of
mats and bamboos on the confusion below whenever it freshens,
varying the process by an easy pull at the sweeps, one at the
stern and two working on pins in transverse beams amidships,
which project 3 feet on each side. The junk is fitted with a
rudder of enormous size, which from its position acts as a keel
board. The price is from 60 to 80 dollars. This singular
craft sails well before the wind, but under other circumstances
is apt to become unmanageable.

Won-san has telegraphic communication with Seoul, and
chiefly through the enterprise of the N.Y.K., it is connected
by most comfortable steamers with Korean ports and with
Wladivostok, Kobe, and Nagasaki, Hong-Kong, Shanghai,
Chefoo, Newchwang, and Tientsin. Steamers of a Russian
line call there at intervals during the summer season. There
are no Western merchants or Western residents except the mis-
sionaries and the Customs staff, and foreign trade is chiefly in
the hands of the Japanese.

About 60 // from Won-san are some large grass-covered
mounds, of which the Koreans do not care to speak, as they
regard them as associated with an ancient Korean custom, now
looked upon as barbarous. During the last dynasty, and more
than five centuries ago, it was customary, when people from
age and infirmity became burdensome to their relations, to in-
carcerate them in the stone cells which these mounds contain,
with a little food and water, and leave them there to die. In
similar mounds, elsewhere in Korea, bowls and jars of coarse
pottery have been found, as well as a few specimens of gray

176

Korea and Her Neighbors

There is nothing sensational about Won-san.'- It has no
" booms" in trade or land, but " keeps the even tenor of its
way." It is to me far the most attractive of the treaty ports.
Its trim Japanese settlement, from which green hills rise
abruptly, backed by fine mountain forms, dignified by snow
for seven months of the year, and above all, the exquisite
caves to the northwest, where the sea murmurs in cool grottos,
and beats the pure white sand into ripples at the feet of cliffs
hidden by flowers, ferns, and grass, and its air of dreamy re-
pose— ''a land where it is always afternoon" — point to its
future as that of a salubrious and popular sanitarium.

In January of 1897, ^1"^^ population of Won-san was as follows:-

Japanese

. 1,299

French

2

Chinese

39

Russian

2

American

8

Danish

I

German .

3

Norwegian .

I

British

2

i»357

Estimated Korean population, 15,000.

CHAPTER XIII

IMPENDING WAR — EXCITEMENT AT CHEMULPO

HAVING heard nothing at all of public events during my
long inland journey, and only a few rumors of unlocal-
ized collisions between the Tong-haks (rebels) and the Royal
troops, the atmosphere of canards at Won-san was somewhat
stimulating, though I had already been long enough in Korea
not to attach much importance to the stories with which the
air was thick. One day it was said that the Tong-haks had
gained great successes and had taken Gatling guns from the
Royal army, another that they had been crushed and their
mysterious and ubiquitous leader beheaded, while the latest
rumor before my departure was that they were marching in
great force on Fusan. Judging from the proclamation which
they circulated, and which, while stating that they rose against
corrupt officials and traitorous advisers, professed unswerving
loyalty to the throne, it seemed credible that, if there were a
throb of patriotism anywhere in Korea, it was in the breasts
of these peasants. Their risings appeared to be free from ex-
cesses and useless bloodshed, and they confined themselves to
the attempt to carry out their programme of reform. Some
foreign sympathy was bestowed upon them, because it was
thought that the iniquities of misrule could go no further, and
that the time was ripe for an armed protest on a larger scale
than the ordinary peasant risings against intolerable exactions.
But at the very moment when these matters were being dis-
cussed in Won-san with not more than a languid interest, a
formidable menace to the established order of things was tak-
ing shape, destined in a few days to cast the Tong-haks into

177

lyS Korea and Her Neighbors

the shade, and concentrate the attention of the world on this
insignificant peninsula.

Leaving Won-san by steamer on 17th June, and arriving at
Fusan on the 19th, I was not surprised to find a Japanese gun-
boat in the harbor, and that 220 Japanese soldiers had been
landed from the Higo Maru that morning and were quartered
in the Buddhist temples on the hill, and that the rebels had
cut the telegraph wires between Fusan and Seoul.

Among the few Europeans at Fusan there was no uneasiness.
The Japanese, with their large mercantile colony there, have
considerable interests to safeguard, and nothing seemed more
natural than the course they took. A rumor that Japanese
troops had been landed at Chemulpo was quite disregarded.

On arriving at Chemulpo, however, early on the morning of
the 2ist, a very exciting state of matters revealed itself. A
large fleet, six Japanese ships of war, the American flag ship,
two French, one Russian, and two Chinese, were lying in the
outer harbor. The limited accommodation of the inner har-
bor was taxed to its utmost capacity. Japanese transports were
landing troops, horses, and war material in steam launches,
junks were discharging rice and other stores for the commis-
sariat department, coolies were stacking it on the beach, and
the movement by sea and land was ceaseless. Visitors from
the shore, excited and agitated, brought a budget of astound-
ing rumors, but confessed to being mainly in the dark.

On landing, I found the deadly dull port transformed : the
streets resounded to the tread of Japanese troops in heavy
marching order, trains of mat and forage carts blocked the
road. Every house in the main street of the Japanese settle-
ment was turned into a barrack and crowded with troops,
rifles and accoutrements gleamed in the balconies, crowds of
Koreans, limp and dazed, lounged in the streets or sat on the
knolls, gazing vacantly at the transformation of their port into
a foreign camp. Only two hours had passed since the first of
the troops landed, and when I visited the camp with a young

Impending War lyg

Russian officer there were 1,200 men under canvas in well-
ventilated bell tents, holding 20 each, with matted floors and
drainage trenches, and dinner was being served in lacquer
boxes. Stables had been run up, and the cavalry and mountain
guns were in the centre. The horses of the mountain battery-
train, serviceable animals, fourteen hands high, were in ex-
cellent condition, and were equipped with pack saddles of the
latest Indian pattern. They were removing shot and shell for
Seoul from the Japanese Consulate with 200 men and 100
horses, and it was done almost soundlessly. The camp, with
its neat streets, was orderly, trim, and quiet. In the town
sentries challenged passers-by. Every man looked as if he
knew his duty and meant to do it. There was no swagger.
The manikins, well armed and serviceably dressed, were
obviously in Korea for a purpose which they meant to ac-
complish.

What that purpose was, was well concealed under color
of giving efficient protection to Japanese subjects in Korea,
who were said to be imperilled by the successes of the Tong-
haks.

The rebellion in southern Korea was exciting much alarm in
the capital. Such movements, though on a smaller scale, are
annual spring events in the peninsula, when in one or other
of the provinces the peasantry, driven to exasperation by
official extortions, rise, and, with more or less violence (oc-
casionally, fatal), drive out the off'ending mandarin. Punish-
ment rarely ensues. The King sends a new official, who
squeezes and extorts in his turn with more or less vigor, until,
if he also passes bearable limits, he is forcibly expelled, and
things settle down once more. This Tong-hak (*' Oriental "
or ''National") movement, though lost sight of in presence
of more important issues, was of greater moment, as being
organized on a broader basis, so as to include a great number
of adherents in Seoul and the other cities, and with such
definite and reasonable objects that at first I was inclined to

l8o Korea and Her Neighbors

call its leaders " armed reformers " rather than '* rebels." At
that time there was no question as to the Royal authority.

The Tong-hak proclamation began by declaring in respect-
ful language loyal allegiance to the King, and went on to
state the grievances in very moderate terms. The Tong-haks
asserted, and with undoubted truth, that officials in Korea, for
their own purposes, closed the eyes and ears of the King to all
news and reports of the wrongs inflicted on his people. That
ministers of State, governors, and magistrates were all indiffer-
ent to the welfare of their country, and were bent only on
enriching themselves, and that there were no checks on their
rapacity. That examinations (the only avenues to official life)
were nothing more than scenes of bribery, barter, and sale,
and were no longer tests of fitness for civil appointment.
That officials cared not for the debt into which the country
was fast sinking. That " they were proud, vainglorious,
adulterous, avaricious." That many officials receiving ap-
pointments in the country lived in Seoul. That " they flatter
and fawn in peace, and desert and betray in times of trouble."

The necessity for reform was strongly urged. There were
no expressions of hostility to foreigners, and the manifesto did
not appear to take any account of them. The leader, whose
individuality was never definitely ascertained, was credited
with ubiquity and supernatural powers by the common people,
as well as with the ability to speak both Japanese and Chinese,
and it was evident from his measures, forethought, the dispo-
sition of his forces, and some touches of Western strategic
skill, that he had some acquaintance with the modern art of
war. His followers, armed at first with only old swords and
halberds, had come to possess rifles, taken from the official
armories and the defeated Royal troops. For in the midst of
the thousand wild rumors which were afloat, it appeared certain
that the King sent several hundred soldiers against the Tong-
haks under a general who, on his way to attack their camp,
raised and armed 300 levies, who, in the engagement which

Impending War 181

followed, joined the " rebels " and turned upon the King's
troops, that 300 of the latter were killed, and that the general
was missing. This, following other successes, the deposition
of several important officials, and the rumored march on Seoul,
had created great alarm, and the King was supposed to be pre-
pared for flight.

But the events of the two or three days before I landed at
Chemulpo threw the local disturbance into the shade, and it
is only with the object of showing with what an excellent
pretext for interference the Tong-haks had furnished the Jap-
anese, that I recall this petty chapter of what is now ancient
history.

The questions vital to Korea and of paramount diplomatic
importance were, " What is the object of Japan? Is this an
invasion? Is she here as an enemy or a friend?" Six thou-
sand troops provisioned for three months had been landed.
Fifteen of the Nippon Yusen Kaishd' s steamers had been with-
drawn from their routes to act as transports, the Japanese had
occupied the Gap, a pass on the Seoul road, and Ma-pu, the
river port of the capital, and with guns, and in considerable
force, had established themselves on Nam Han, a wooded
hill above Seoul, from which position they commanded both
the palace and capital. All these movements were carried out
with a suddenness, celerity, and freedom from hitch which in
their military aspects were worthy of the highest praise.

To any student of Far Eastern politics it must have been ap-
parent that this skilful and extraordinary move on the part of
Japan was not made for the protection of her colonies in
Chemulpo and Seoul, nor yet against Korea. It has been said
in various quarters, and believed, that the Japanese ministry
was shaky, and had to choose between its own downfall and a
foreign war. This is a complete sophism. There can be no
question that Japan had been planning such a movement for
years. She had made accurate maps of Korea, and had
secured reports of forage and provisions, measurements of the

i82 Korea and Her Neighbors

width of rivers and the depth of fords, and had been buying
up rice in Korea for three months previously, while even as far
as the Tibetan frontier, Japanese officers in disguise had
gauged the strength and weakness of China, reporting on her
armies on paper and, in fact, on her dummy guns, and
antique, honeycombed carronades, and knew better than the
Chinese themselves how many men each province could put
into the field, how drilled and how armed, and they were
acquainted with the infinite corruption and dishonesty, com-
bined with a total lack of patriotism, which nullified even such
commissariat arrangements as existed on paper, and rendered
it absolutely impossible for China to send an army efficiently
into the field, far less sustain it during a campaign.

To all appearance Japan had completely outwitted China in
Korea, and a panic prevailed among the Chinese. Thirty
ladies of the households of the Chinese Resident and Consul
embarked for China on the appearance of the Japanese in
Seoul, and 800 Chinamen left Chemulpo the day I arrived,
the consternation in the Chinese colony being so great that
even the market gardeners, who have a monopoly of a most
thriving trade, fled.

I never before saw the Chinaman otherwise than aggra-
vatingly cool, collected, and master of the situation, but on
that June day he lost his head, and, frenzied by race hatred
and pecuniary loss, was transformed into a shouting barbarian,
not knowing what he would be at. The Chinese inn where I
spent the day was one centre of the excitement, and each time
that I came in from a walk or received a European visitor, a
number of the employeSy usually most quiet and reticent, hud-
dled into my room with faces distorted by anxiety, asking
what I had heard, what was going to be, whether the Chinese
army would be there that night, whether the British fleet was
coming to help them, etc., and even my Chinese servant, a
most excellent fellow, was beside himself, muttering in English
through clenched teeth, " I must kill, kill, kill ! "

Impending War 183

Meanwhile the dwarf battalions, a miracle of rigid disci-
pline and good behavior, were steadily tramping to Seoul,
where matters then and for some time afterwards stood thus.
The King was in his secluded palace, and that which still
posed as a Government had really collapsed. Mr. Hillier,
the English Consul-General, was in England on leave, and the
acting Consul-General, Mr. Gardner, C.M.G., had only been
in Korea for three months. The American Minister was a
newer man still. The French and German Consuls need
hardly be taken into account, as they had few, if any, inter-
ests to safeguard. Mr. Waeber, the able and cautious diplo-
matist who had represented Russia for nine years, and had
the confidence of the whole foreign community, had been ap-
pointed cha7'ge d'affaires at Peking, and had left Seoul in the
previous week. There remained, therefore, facing each other,
Otori San, the Japanese ambassador to Peking, who was in
Korea on a temporary mission, and Yuan, a military mandarin
who had been for some years Chinese Resident in Seoul, a man
entrusted by the Chinese Emperor with large powers, who was
credited by foreigners with great force, tact, and ability,
and who was generally regarded as " the power behind the
throne."

I had frequently seen Otori San in the early months of the
year, a Japanese of average height, speaking English well,
wearing European dress as though born to it, and sporting
white " shoulder-of-mutton " whiskers. He lounged in draw-
ing-rooms, making trivial remarks to ladies, and was remark-
able only for his insignificance. I believe he made the same
impression, or want of impression, at Peking. But circum-
stances or stringent orders from Tokyo had transformed Mr.
Otori. Whether he had worn a mask previously I know not,
but he showed himself rough, vigorous, capable, a man of
action, unscrupulous, and not only clever enough to outwit
Yuan in a difficult and hazardous game, but everybody else.

In the afternoon of that memorable day at Chemulpo the

184 Korea and Her Neighbors

Vice-Consul called on me and warned me that I must leave
Korea that night, and the urgency and seriousness of his
manner left me no doubt that he was acting on information
which he was not at liberty to divulge. I had left my travel-
ling gear at Won san in readiness for an autumn journey, and
was going to Seoul that night for a week to get my money
and civilized luggage before going for the summer to Japan.
It was a serious blow. Other Europeans advised me not to
be '* deported," but it is one of my travelling rules never to
be a source of embarrassment to British officials, and sup-
posing the crisis to be an acute one, I reluctantly yielded,
and that night, with two English fellow-sufferers, left Che-
mulpo in the Japanese steamer Higo Maru, bound for ports
in the Gulf of Pechili, which cid-de-sac would have proved
a veritable "lion's mouth" to her had hostilities been as
imminent as the Vice-Consul believed them to be. I had
nothing but the clothing I wore, a heavy tweed suit, and the
mercury was 80°, and after paying my passage to Chefoo, the
first port of call, I had only four cents left. It was four months
before I obtained either my clothes or my money !

CHAPTER XIV

DEPORTED TO MANCHURIA

THOUGH I landed at Chefoo in heavy tweed clothing, I
was obliged to walk up the steep hill to the British Con-
sulate, though the mercury was 84° in the shade, because I
had no money with which to pay for 2^ jitiriksJia / My reflec-
tions were anything but pleasant. My passport and letters of
introduction, both private and official, were in Seoul, my travel-
ling dress was distinctly shabby, and I feared that an impecu-
nious person without introductions, and unable to prove her
identity, might meet with a very cool reception. I experi-
enced something of the anxiety and timidity which are the
everyday lot of thousands, and I have felt a far tenderer sym-
pathy with the penniless, specially the educated penniless, ever
since. I was so extremely uncomfortable that I hung about
the gate of the British Consulate for some minutes before I
could summon up courage to go to the door and send in a torn
address of a letter which was my only visiting card ! I thought,
but it may have been fancy, that the Chinese who took it eyed
me suspiciously and contemptuously.

The sudden revulsion of feeling which followed I cannot
easily forget. Mr. Clement Allen, our justly popular Consul,
met me with a warm welcome. I needed no proof of identity
or anything else, he only desired to know what he could do
for me. My anxiety was not quite over, for I had to make
the humiliating confession that I needed money, and immedi-
ately he took me to Messrs. Ferguson and Co., who transact
banking business, and asked them to let me have as much as I
wanted. An invitation to tiffin followed, and Lady O' Conor,

185

i86 Korea and Her Neighbors

and the wife of the Spanish minister at Peking, who were stay-
ing at the Consulate, made up a bundle of summer clothing for
me, and my ''deportation" enriched me with valued friend-
ships.

Returning in a very different frame of mind to the Higo
Maruj I went on in her in severe heat to the mouth of the
Peiho River in sight of the Taku forts, and after rolling on its
muddy surges for two days, proceeded to Newchwang in Man-
churia, reaching the mouth of the Liau River in five days from
Chemulpo. Rain was falling, and a more hideous and disas-
trous-looking country than the voyage of two hours up to the
port revealed, I never saw. The Liau, which has a tremen-
dous tide and strong current, and is thick with yellow mud, is
at high water nearly on a level with the adjacent flats, of which
one sees little, except some mud forts on the left bank of the
river, which are said to be heavily armed with Krupp guns,
and an expanse of mud and reeds.

Of the mud-built Chinese city of Ying-tzu (Military Camp),
known as Newchwang, though the real Newchwang is a dere-
lict port 30 miles up the Liau, nothing can be seen above the
mud bank but the curved, tiled roofs of yamens and tem-
ples, though it is a city of 60,000 souls, the growth of its
population having kept pace with its rapid advance in com-
mercial importance since it was opened to foreign trade in
i860. 'Several British steamers with big Chinese characters
on their sides were at anchor in the tideway, and the river
sides were closely fringed with up-river boats and sea-going
junks, of various picturesque builds and colors, from Southern
China, steamers and junks alike waiting not only for cargoes
of the small beans for which Manchuria is famous, but for the
pressed bean cake which is exported in enormous quantities to
fertilize the sugar plantations and hungry fields of South China.

There is a Bund, and along and behind it is the foreign
settlement, occupied by about forty F.uropeans. The white
buildings of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, the houses

Deported to Manchuria 187

of the staff, the hongs of two or three foreign merchants, and
the British Consular buildings, may be said to constitute the
settlement. It has the reputation of being one of the kindliest
and friendliest in the Far East, and the fact that the river closes
annually about the 20th of November for about four months,
and that the residents are thrown entirely on their own re-
sources and on each other, only serves to increase that inter-
dependence which binds this and similarly isolated communi-
ties so strongly together.

I was most kindly welcomed at the English Consulate then
and on my return, and have most pleasant remembrances of
Newchvvang, its cordial kindness, and cheerful Bund, and breezy
blue skies, but at first sight it is a dreary, solitary-looking place
of mud, and muddy waters for ever swallowing large slices of
the land, and threatening to engulf it altogether.

" Peas," really beans, ^ are its chief raison d'etre, and their
ups and downs in price its mild sensations. "Pea-boats,"
long and narrow, with matting roofs and one huge sail, bring
down the beans from the interior, and mills working night
and day express their oil, which is as good for cooking as for
burning.

The viceroyalty of Manchuria, in which I spent the next two
months, is interesting as in some ways distinct from China, be-
sides having a prospective interest in connection with Russia.
Lying outside of the Great Wall, it has a population of several
distinct and mixed races, Manchus (Tartars), Gilyaks, Tung-
usi, Solons, Daurs, and Chinese. Along with these must be
mentioned about 30,000 Korean families, the majority of whom
have left Korea since 1868, in consequence of political disturb-
ance and official exactions.^

The facts that the dynasty which has ruled China by right
of conquest since 1644 is a Manchu dynasty, and that it im-

1 Glycene hispides (Dr. Morrison).

2 According to information obtained by the Russian Diplomatic Mission
in Peking,

i88 Korea and Her Neighbors

posed the shaven forehead and the pigtail on all Chinese men
successfully, while it absolutely failed to prevent the women
from crippling their feet, though up to this day no woman
with "Golden Lilies" (crushed feet) is allowed to enter the
Imperial palace, naturally turn attention to this viceroyalty,
which, in point of its area of 380,000 square miles, is larger
than Austria and Great Britain and Ireland put together, while
its population is estimated at from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000
only. Thus it offers a vast field for emigration from the con-
gested provinces of Northern China, and Chinese immigrants
are steadily flocking in from Shan-tung, Chi-li, and Shen-si,
so that Southern Manchuria at this time is little behind the
inner provinces of China in density of population.

It is different in the northern province, where a cold climate
and vast stretches of forest render agriculture more difficult.
If it had not been for the war and its attendant complications,
I had purposed to travel through it from Northern Korea.
But it is unsettled at all times. The majority of its immi-
grants consists of convicts, fugitive criminals, soldiers who
have left the colors, and gold and ginseng hunters. There is
something almost comical about some of the doings of this
unpromising community.

It comprises large organized bands of mounted brigands,
well led and armed, who do not hesitate to come into collision
with the Imperial troops, frequently coming off victors, and
at times, as when I was in Mudken, wresting forts from their
hands. During the Taiping rebellion, when the Chinese
troops were withdrawn from Manchuria, these bands carried
havoc and terror everywhere, and seizing upon towns and
villages, ruled them by right of conquest ! ^ In recent years
the Government has decided to let voluntary colonists settle
in the northern provinces, and has even furnished them with
material assistance.

Still, things are bad, and the brigands have come to be re-

» Information received by the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Peking.

Deported to Manchuria 189

garded as a necessary evil, and are "arranged with." They
are not scrupulous as to human life, and when they catch a
rich merchant from the south, they send an envoy to his guild
with a claim for ransom, strengthened by the threat that if it
is not forthcoming in so many days, the captive's head will
be cut off. Winter, when the mud is frozen hard, is the only
time for the transit of goods by land, and long trains of mule
carts may then be seen, a hundred or more together, starting
from Newchwang, Mukden, and other southern cities, each
carrying a small flag, which denotes that a suitable blackmail
has been paid to an agent of the brigand chiefs, and that they
will not be robbed on the journey ! Later, when I was on
the Siberian frontier of Manchuria, the brigands were in great
force, and having been joined by half-starved deserters from
the Chinese army, were harrying the country, and the peasants
were flying in terror from their farms.

Among the curious features of Manchurian brigandage, is
that its virulence rises or falls with good or bad harvests, inun-
dations, etc. For many of the usually respectable peasant
farmers, in times of floods and scanty crops, join the robber
bands, returning to their honest avocations the next season !

In spite, however, of this terrorism in the northeast, Man-
churia is one of the most prosperous of the Chinese viceroy-
alties, and its foreign trade is assuming annually increasing
importance.^

I was disappointed to find that the Manchus (or Tartars)

1 Taking the port of Newchwang, through which, with certain excep-
tions, all exports of native produce and imports of foreign merchandise and
Chinese productions pass, in 1871 16 steamers and 203 sailing vessels
entered the port, with a total tonnage of 65,933 tons; in 1881, 114
steamers and 218 sailing vessels, with a tonnage of 159,098 tons; and in
1891, 372 steamers and 61 sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 334,709
tons. In the same period, British tonnage had increased from 38.6 of the
whole to 58 per cent, of the whole. In 187 1 German tonnage nearly
equalled British, being 37,6 of the whole, but it had declined in 1891 to
28 per cent, of the whole.

190 Korea and Her Neighbors

differ little in appearance from the race which they have sub-
dued. The women, however, are taller, comlier, and more
robust in appearance, as may be expected from their retaining
the natural size and shape of their feet, and not only their
coiffure but their costume is different, the Manchu women
wearing sleeveless dresses from the throat to the feet, over
under dresses with wide embroidered sleeves. AVith some ex-
ceptions, they are less secluded than their Chinese sisters, and
have an air of far greater freedom.

Most of the Manchu customs have disappeared along with
the language, which is only spoken in a few remote valleys,
and is apparently only artificially preserved because the ruling
dynasty is Manchu. It is only those students who are aspir-
ants for literary degrees and high office in the viceroyalty who
are obliged to learn it.

People of pure Manchu race are chiefly met with in the
north. Manchus, as kinsmen of the present Imperial dynasty,
enjoy various privileges. Every male adult, as soon as he can
string a short and remarkably inflexible bow (no easy task),
becomes a '' Bannerman," i.e. he is enrolled in one of eight
bodies of irregulars, called *' Banners" from their distinctive
flags, and from that time receives one /^/<?/ (now about three
shillings) per month, increased to from five to seven taels a
month when on active service. These "Bannermen," as a
rule, are not specially reputable characters. They gamble,
hang about yamens for odd bits of work, in hope of permanent
official employment, and generally sublet to the Chinese the
lands which they receive from the Government.

It is a singular anomaly that bows and arrows are relied
upon as a means of defence in an empire which buys rifles and
Krupp guns. Later, in Peking, which was supposed to be
threatened by the Japanese armies, it was intended to post
Bannermen with bows and arrows at the embrasures of the
wall, and on the Peking and Tungchow road I met twenty
carts carrying up loads of these primitive weapons for the de-

Deported to Manchuria 191

fence of the capital ! Bow and arrow drill is one of the most
amusing of the many military mediaeval sights of China.
The Chinese Bannermen are descendants of those Chinese
who, in the seventeenth century, espoused the cause of the
Manchu conquerors of China. The whole military force of
the three provinces of the viceroyalty is 280,000 men. Tartar
garrisons and " Tartar cities" exist in many of the great pro-
vincial cities of China, and as the interests of these troops are
closely bound up with those of the present Tartar dynasty,
their faithfulness is relied upon as the backbone of Imperial
security.

From its history and its audacious and permanent conquest
of its gigantic neighbor, its mixed population and numerous
aboriginal tribes, its mineral and agricultural wealth, and a
certain freedom and breeziness which constitute a distinctive
feature, Manchuria is a very interesting viceroyalty, and the
two months which I spent in it gave it a strong hold upon me.
Mud is a great feature of Newchwang, perhaps the leading
feature for some months of the year, during wliich no traffic
by road is possible, and the Bund is the only practicable walk.
The night I arrived rain began, and continued with one hour's
cessation for five days and nights, for much of the time com-
ing down like a continuous thundershower. The atmosphere
was steamy and hazy, and the mercury by day and night was
pretty stationary at 78°. About 8.46 inches of rain fell on
those days. The barometer varied from 29° to 29.3°. After-
wards, when the rain ceased for a day, the heat was nearly
unbearable. Of course, no boat's crew would start under such
circumstances. Rumors of an extensive inundation came
down the river, but these and all others of purely local interest
gave place to an intense anxiety as to whether war would be
declared, and what the effect of war would be on the great
trading port of Newchwang.

CHAPTER XV

A MANCHURIAN DELUGE — A PASSENGER CART — AN ACCIDENT

IT surprised me much to find that only one foreign resident
had visited Mukden, which is only 120 miles distant by a
road which is traversable in winter, and is accessible by river
during the summer and autumn in from eight to ten days. I
left Newchwang on the 3rd of July, and though various cir-
cumstances were unpropitious, reached Mukden in eight days,
being able to avoid many of the windings of the Liau by sail-
ing over an inundation.

The kindly foreign community lent me necessaries for the
journey, but even with these the hold of a ''pea-boat" was
not luxurious. My camp-bed took up the greater part of it,
and the roof was not much above my head. The descent into
the hold and the ascent were difficult, and when wind and
rain obliged me to close the front, it was quite dark, cock-
roaches swarmed, and the smell of the bilge water was horri-
ble. I was very far from well when I started, and in two days
was really ill, yet I would not have missed the special interest
of that journey for anything, or its solitude, for Wong's lim-
ited English counted for nothing and involved no conversa-
tional effort.

For some distance above Newchwang or Ying-tzu, as far as
the real Newchwang, there is a complication of muddy rivers
hurrying through vast reed beds, the resort of wild fowl, with
here and there a mud bank with a mud hovel or two upon it.
At that time reed beds and partially inundated swamps
stretched away nearly to the horizon, which is limited in the
far distance by the wavy blue outline of some low hills.

192

A Manchurian Deluge 193

We ran up the river till the evening of the second day be-
fore a fair wind, and then were becalmed on a reedy expanse
swarming with mosquitos. The mercury was at 89° in the
hold that night. I had severe fever, with racking pains in my
head, back, and limbs, and in the morning the stamping of
the junkmen to and fro, along the narrow strip of deck out-
side the roof, was hardly bearable. Wong had used up the
ample supply of water, and there was nothing wherewith to
quench thirst but the brown, thick water of the Liau, the tea
made with which resembled peasoup.

On the morning of the third day it began to rain and blow,
and for the next awful four days the wind and rain never
ceased. The oiled paper which had been tacked over the roof
of the boat was torn into strips by the violence of the winds,
which forced the rain through every chink. I lay down that
night with the mercury at 80°, woke feeling very cold, but,
though surprised, fell asleep again. Woke again much colder,
feeling as if my feet were bandaged together, extricated myself
with difficulty, struck a light, and got up into 6 inches of a
mixture of bilge water and rain water, with an overpowering
stench, in or on which all things were sunk or floating. Won-
dered again at being so very cold, found the temperature at
84°, and that I had been sleeping under a wringing sheet in
soaked clothing and on soaked sacking, under a soaked mos-
quito net, and that there was not a dry article in the hold.
For the next three days and nights things remained in the
same condition, and though I was really ill I had to live in
wet clothing and drink the '* liquid cholera " of the flood, all
the wells being submerged.

Telegrams later in the English papers announced '' Great
floods in Manchuria," but of the magnitude of the inundation
which destroyed for that season the magnificent crops of the
great fertile plain of the Liau, and swept away many of its
countless farming villages, only the experience of sailing over
it could give any idea.

194 Korea and Her Neighbors

In that miserable night there were barkings of dogs, shouts
of men, mewings of cats, and general noises of unrest, and in
the morning, of the village of Piengdo opposite to which we
had moored the evening before, only one house and a barn re-
mained, which were shortly carried away. Many of the peo-
ple had escaped in boats, and the remainder, with their fowls,
dogs, and cats, were in the spreading branches of a large tree.
Although the mast of my boat was considerably in the way,
and it was difficult to make fast, I succeeded in rescuing the
whole menagerie and in transferring it in two trips to a village
on the other side, which was then 5 feet above the water.

We had reached the most prosperous region of Manchuria,
a plain 60 miles in length, of deep, rich alluvial soil, bearing
splendid crops, the most lucrative of which are the bean, the
oil from which is the staple export of the country, the opium
poppy, and tobacco. The great and small millet, wheat, bar-
ley, melons, and cucumbers cover the ground, mulberry trees
for the silkworm surround the farmhouses, and the great plain
is an idyll of bounteousness and fertility. Of all this not a
trace remained, except in a few instances the tops of the 8-feet
millet, which supplies the people not only with food, but with
fuel, and fodder for their animals„

The river bank burst during the night, and the waters were
raging into the plain, from which I missed many a brown-
roofed village, which the evening before stood among its wil-
low and poplar trees. At 11 a fair wind sprang up, junks be-
gan to move, and my boatmen, who had talked of returning,
untied and moved too. After an exciting scene at a bend,
where the river, leaping like a rapid, thumped the junks
against the opposite shore, we passed one wrecked village after
another, bits of walls of houses alone standing. The people
and their fowls were in the trees. The women clung to their
fowls as much as to their babies. Dugouts, scows, and a few
junks, mine among them, were busy saving life, and we took
three families and their fowls to Sho-wa Ku, a large junk port.

A Manchurian Deluge 195

where a number of houses were still standing. These families
had lost all their household goods and gods, as well as mules,
pigs, and dogs. On our way we sailed into a farmyard to try
to get some eggs, and the junk not replying to her helm,
thumped one of the undermined walls down. It was a large
farmhouse and full of refugees. The water was 3 feet deep in
the rooms, naked children were floating about in tubs, and
the women, looking resigned, sat on the tables. The men
said that it was the last of four houses, and that they might
as well be dead, for they had lost all their crops and their
beasts.

A fearful sight presented itself at Sho-wa Ku. There the
river, indefinite as it had previously been, disappeared alto-
gether, and the whole country was a turbulent muddy sea,
bounded on the east by a range of hills, and to the north and
south limitless. Under it lay all the fruits of the tireless in-
dustry and garden cultivation of a large and prosperous popu-
lation, and the remorseless waters under the influence of a gale
were rolling in muddy surges, ''crested with tawny foam,"
over the fast dissolving homes.

On this vast flood we embarked to shorten the distance, and
sailed with three reefs in the sail for 13 miles over it, till we
were brought up by an insurmountable obstacle in the shape
of a tremendous rush of water where a bank had given way.
There we were compelled to let go two anchors in the early
afternoon. The wind had become foul, and the rain, which
fell in torrents, was driven almost horizontally. Nothing that
suggested human life was in sight. It might have been " the
Deluge," for the windows of heaven were opened. There were
a muddy, rolling sea, and a black sky, dark with tremendous
rain, and the foliage of trees with submerged trunks was alone
suggestive of even vegetable life and of the villages which had
been destroyed by the devouring waters.

In 13 miles just one habitation remained standing, a large,
handsome brick house with entrance arch, quadrangle, curved

196 Korea and Her Neighbors

roofs, large farm buildings, and many servants' houses, some
of which were toppling, and others were submerged up to
their roofs. There was a lookout on the principal roof and he
hailed us, but as there were several scows about, enough to
save life, I disregarded him, and we sailed on into the
tempestuous solitude where we anchored.

The day darkened slowly into night, the junk rolled with
short plunging rolls, the rain fell more tremendously than
ever, and the strong wind, sweeping through the rigging with
a desolate screech, only just overpowered the clatter on the
roof. I was ill. The seas we shipped drowned the charcoal,
and it was impossible to make tea or arrowroot. The rain
dripped everywhere through the roof. My lamp spluttered
and went out and could not be relighted, bedding and cloth-
ing were soaked, my bed stood in the water, the noise was
deafening.

Never in all my journeys have I felt so solitary. I real-
ized that no other foreigner was travelling in Manchuria, that
there was no help in illness, and that there was nothing to be
done but lie there in saturated clothes till things took a turn
for the better.

And so they did. By eight the next morning the scene was
changed. The sky was blue and cloudless, there was a cool
north wind, and the waste of water dimpled and glittered, the
broken sparkle of its mimic waves suggesting the ocean after a
destructive storm has become a calm. After sailing over
broad blue water all day, and passing " islands " on which the
luckier villages were still standing, towards evening we sailed
into a village of large farmhouses and made fast to the window-
bars of one of them, which, being of brick, had not suffered
greatly. Eleven of the farms had disappeared, and others
were in process of disappearing. The gardens, farmyards,
and open spaces were under 5 feet of water, the surface of
which was covered by a bubbly scum. The horses and cattle
were in the rooms of the brick houses where many human be-

A Manchurlan Deluge 197

ings had taken refuge. A raft made of farming implements
ferried the people among the few remaining dwellings.

At that farm the skipper brought a quantity of rice for his
family, and by a lovely moonlight we sailed over the drowned
country to his village. The flood currents were strong, and
when we got there we were driven against two undermined
houses and knocked them down, afterwards drifting into a road
with fine trees which entangled the mast and sail, and our
stern bumped down the wall of the road, and the current car-
ried us into a square of semi-submerged houses, and eventu-
ally we got into the skipper's garden, and saw his family
mounted on tables and chairs on the top of the ka7ig.

Two uneventful days followed. The boatmen were in cease-
less dread of pirates, and I was so ill that I felt I would rather
die than make another effort.

Arriving within 3 miles of Mukden, Wong engaged a pas-
senger cart, a conveyance of the roughest description, which
is only rendered tolerable by having its back, sides, and bot-
tom padded with mattresses, and I was destitute of everything !
Nothing can exaggerate the horrors of an unameliorated
Chinese cart on an infamous road. Down into ruts 2 feet
deep, out of whicli three fine mules could scarcely extricate
us, over hillocks and big gnarled roots of trees, through
quagmires and banked ditches, where, in dread of the awful
jerk produced by the mules making a non-simultaneous jump
up the farther side, I said to myself, ** This is my last hour,"
getting a blow on my head which made me see a shower of
sparks — so I entered the gate of the outer wall of beaten
clay ii^^ miles in circuit which surrounds the second city of
the empire. Then, through a quagmire out of which we were
dragged by seven mules, I bruised, breatliless, and in great
pain, and up a bank where the cart turned over, pulled the
mules over with it, and rolled down a slight declivity, I found
myself in the roof with the cameras on the top of me and my
right arm twisted under me, a Chinese crowd curious to see the

198

Korea and Her Neighbors

*' foreign devil," a vague impress of disaster in my somewhat
dazed brain, and Wong raging at large ! Then followed a
shady compound ablaze with flowers, a hearty welcome at the
house of Dr. Ross, the senior missionary of the Scotch U.P.
Church, sweet homelike rooms in a metamorphosed Chinese
house, a large shady bedroom replete with comforts, the im-
mediate arrival of Dr. Christie, the medical missionary, who
pronounced my arm-bone ** splintered " and the tendons
severely torn, and placed the limb in splints, and a time of
kind and skilled nursing by Mrs. Ross, and of dreamy restful-
ness, in which the horrors of the hold of the " pea-boat " and
of the dark and wind-driven flood only served to emphasize
the comfort and propitiousness of my surroundings.

PASSENGER CART, MUKDEN.

CHAPTER XVI

MUKDEN AND ITS MISSIONS

MUKDEN Stands at an altitude of t6o feet above the
sea, in Lat. 41° 51' N. and Long. 123° 37^ E., in the
centre of an immense alluvial plain, bearing superb crops and
liberally sprinkled with farming villages embowered in wood,
a wavy line of low blue hills at a great distance limiting the
horizon. It is 3 miles from the Hun-ho, a tributary of the
Liau, and within its outer wall idles along the silvery Siao-ho
or " small river," with a long Bund affording a delightful
promenade and an airy position for a number of handsome
houses, the residences of missionaries and mandarins, with
stately outer and inner gates, through which glimpses are ob-
tained of gardens and flowering plants and pots. This city of
260,000 inhabitants, owing to its connection with the reigning
dynasty, is the second city officially in the empire, and the
Peking "boards" with one exception are nominally dupli-
cated there. Hence it not only has an army of Chinese and
Tartar officials of all grades, but a large resident population of
retired and expectant mandarins, living in handsome houses
and making a great display in the streets. There is an in-
cessant movement of mule carts, the cabs of Mukden, with
their superb animals and their blue canopies covering both
mule and driver, official mule carts driven at a trot, with four
or more outriders with white hats and red plumes, private
carts belonging to young mandarin swells, who give daily en-
tertainments at a restaurant on the Bund, mandarins on horse-
back with runners clearing the way, carts waiting for "lotus
viewers," tall, "big-footed" women promenading with their

199

2oO Korea and Her Neighbors

children, their hair arranged in loops on silver frames and
decorated with flowers, hospital patients on stretchers and in
chairs, men selling melons and candies, and beggars who by-
blowing through a leaf imitate the cry of nearly every bird.
Then in the summer evenings, when the mercury has fallen to
80°, the servants of rich men bring out splendid ponies and
mules and walk them on the Bund, and there come the crowds
to stare at the foreigners and hang round their gates. The
presence of well-dressed women is a feature rare in the East.
Up to the war people were polite and friendly, but progress was
difficult and the smell of garlic strong. At night the dogs bark,
guns are fired, drums and gongs are beaten, and the clappers
of the watchmen rival each other in making night hideous.

All this life lies between the outer wall and the lofty quad-
rangular inner wall, 3 miles in circuit, built of brick, flanked
by lofty towers, and pierced by eight gates protected by lofty
brick bastions. This wall, on which three carriages could
drive abreast, protects the commercial and official part of the
city, which is densely crowded, Mukden, besides being a great
grain emporium, being the centre of the Chinese fur trade,
which attracts buyers from all parts of the world. Fine streets,
though full of humps and quagmires, divide the city into nine
wards or quarters, the central quarter being Imperial property,
and containing a fine palace with much decorative yellow
tiling, the examination hall, and a number of palaces and
yamenSy all solidly built. To my thinking no Chinese city is
so agreeable as Mukden. The Tartar capital is free from that
atmosphere of decay which broods over Peking. Its wide
streets are comparatively clean. It is regularly built, and its
flne residences are well kept up. It is a busy place, and does
a large and lucrative trade, specially in grain, beans, and furs.
It has various industries, which include the tanning and dress-
ing of furs and the weaving of silk stuff's; its bankers and
merchants are rich, and it has great commercial as well as
some political importance.

W
Q

D

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O

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O

O

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1

■^

Mukden and its Missions 201

As the old capital of Manchuria and the abode of the Prince
ancestors of the family which was placed on the Chinese throne
in 1644, it has special privileges, among which are " Ministres
de Parade," nominally holding the same rank as the actual
ministers in Peking. Near it are the superb tombs of the an-
cestors of the present Emperor, on which grand avenues of
trees converge, bordered by colossal stone animals after the
fashion of those at the Ming tombs near Peking. Formerly
the Manchu Emperors made pilgrimages to these tombs and
the sacred city of their dynasty, but since the second decade
of this century the Chinese Emperor's portrait only has been
sent at intervals in solemn procession, the Peking road being
in the meantime closed to ordinary traffic.

The Governor-General of Manchuria resides in Mukden, as
well as the military Governor, who is assisted by a civil ad-
ministrator and by the Presidents of five Boards. The great
offices of State are filled in duplicate by Chinese and Manchus,
and criminals of the two races are tried in separate courts.

The favorable reception given to Christianity is one of the
features of Mukden. The fine pagoda of the Christian Church
is en evidence everywhere. The Scotch U. P. missionaries,
who have been established there for twenty-five years, are on
friendly terms with the people, and specially with many of
the mandarins and high officials, who show them tokens of
regard publicly and privately on all occasions. Dr. Christie,
the medical missionary, is the trusted friend as well as the
medical adviser of many of the leading officials and their
wives, who, with every circumstance of ceremonial pomp,
have presented complimentary tablets to the hospital, and alto-
gether the relations between the Chinese and the missionaries
are unique. I attribute these special relations with the upper
classes partly to the fact that Dr. Ross, the senior missionary,
and Dr. Christie, and those who have joined them subse-
quently, have studied Chinese custom and etiquette very
closely, and are careful to conform to both as far as is possible,

202 Korea and Her Neiirhbors

b'

while they are not only keen-sighted for the good that is in
the Chinese, but bring the best out of them.

Thus Christianity, divested of the nonchalant or contemp-
tuous insularity by which it is often rendered repulsive, has
made considerable progress not only in the capital but in the
province, and until the roads became unsafe there was scarcely
a day during my long visit in which there were not deputa-
tions from distant villages asking for Christian workers, repre-
senting numerous bands of rural worshippers, who, having
received some knowledge of Christianity from converts, col-
porteurs, or catechists, had renounced many idolatrous prac-
tices, and desired further instruction. Of the " professing
Christians," Dr. Ross said that it was only a very small per-
centage who had heard the Gospel from Europeans ! Four
thousand were already baptized, and nearly as many again
were *' inquirers " with a view to baptism. It was most curious
to see men coming daily from remote regions asking for some
one to go and instruct them in the " Jesus doctrine," for
"they had learned as much as they could without a teacher." In
many parts of Manchuria there are now Christian communities
carrying on their own worship and discipline, and it is note-
worthy tliat very many of the converts are members of those
Secret Societies whose strongest bond of union is the search
after righteousness.

The Mission Hospital is one of the largest and best equipped
in the Far East, and besides doing a great medical and surgi-
cal work, is a medical school in which students pass through a
four years' curriculum. There also Dr. Christie gives illus-
trated popular scientific lectures in the winter, which are at-
tended among others by a number of sons of mandarins.
Donations, both of money and food, are contributed to this
hospital both by officials and merchants; and General Tso, a
most charitable man and beloved by the poor, only the night
before he started for Korea, sent a bag of tickets for ice, so
that the hospital might not suffer for the lack of it during his

Mukden and its Missions

203

absence. Only a few months before he presented it with a
handsome tablet and subscription/

Even in so civilized a city as Mukden, with its schools and
literary examinations, its thousands of literary aspirants to
official position, its streets full of a busy and splendid official-
ism, its enormous trade, its banks and yamens, its 20,000
Mussulmans, with their many mosques, and hatred of the pig,
and the slow interpenetration of enlightened Western ideas,
Chinese superstitions of the usual order, well known by every
reader, prevail.

The system of medicine, though it contains the knowledge
and use of some valuable native drugs among the sixty which
are exported, is in many respects extremely barbarous. The
doctors have no operative surgery and cannot even tie an
artery ! They use cupping, the cautery, and acupuncture hot
or cold, with long coarse uncleanly needles, with which they
pierce the liver, joints, and stomach for pains, sprains, and
rheumatism. They close all abscesses, wounds, and ulcers
with a black impervious plaster. Witch doctors are resorted
to in cases of hysteria or mental derangement. Vaccination
is now to some extent adopted with calf or transferred lymph,
the puncture being made in the nostrils. In order to ascer-
tain whether a sick person is likely to live, they plunge long

1 General Tso's cavalry brigade was perhaps the best disciplined in the
Chinese army, and he was a severe disciplinarian, but he was also an
earnest philanthropist, and though a strict Mussulman, always showed
himself friendly to the Christian religion, specially in its benevolent as-
pects. His soup kitchens saved many a family from starvation. He
established and was the chief support of a foundling hospital. During
the terrible inundation of 1888 he distributed food among the famishing
with his own hands. His friendly help could always be relied on by the
missionaries, who joined in the sorrow with which Manchuria mourned
for his premature death at Phyong-yang in Korea. The benevolence of
rich Chinese ought not to be overlooked. The charities of China are on
a gigantic scale, and many of them are admirably administered by men
who expend much self-sacrificing effort on their administration.

2o4 Korea and Her Neighbors

needles into the body, and give np the case as hopeless if blood
does not flow. When death is near the friends dress the pa-
tient in the best clothes they can afford and remove him from
the kan:^ (the usual elevated sleeping place) to the floor, or lay
him on aslies. As the spirit departs they cry loudly in the ear.
In connection with death, it may be mentioned that some of
the most striking shops in Mukden, after the coffin shops, are
those in which are manufactured and sold admirable lifesize
representations of horses, men, asses, elephants, carts, and all
the articles of luxury of this life, which are carried in procession
and are burned at the grave, sometimes to the value of ^i,ooo.

Few children under nine years old are buried, and those
only among the richest class. When death occurs, the mother,
wailing bitterly, wraps the body in matting, and throws it
away, i.e. she places it where the dogs can get at it. This
ghastly burden must not be carried out of a door or window,
but through a new or disused opening, in order that the evil
spirit which causes the disease may not enter. The belief is
that the Heavenly Dog which eats the sun at the time of an
eclipse demands the bodies of children, and that if they
are denied to him he will bring certain calamity on the
household.

I have mentioned the kang, which is a marked feature of the
houses and inns of Manchuria, which for its latitude has the
coldest winter in the world, the mercury often reaching 17°
F. below zero. The kang is a brick platform covered with
matting and heated economically by flues, and is at once
sleeping and sitting place. The stalks of tlie Hokiis Sorghum
are used for fuel. In winter, when the external temperature
may be a little above and much below zero for a month at a
time, the Chinaman, unable to heat his whole room, drops his
shoes, mounts his kang, sits crosslegged on the warm mat,
covers his padded socks with his padded robe, and there takes
his meals and receives his friends in comfort. When I was
invited to climb the Jzang I felt myself a persona grata.

Mukden and its Missions 205

The pawnshops of Mukden, with their high outer walls,
lofty gateways, two or three well-kept courts, fine buildings,
and tall stone columns at the outer gate, with the sign of the
business upon them, their scrupulous cleanliness, and their
armies of polite, intelligent clerks, are as respectable as banks
with us. They demand for every sum borrowed movable
property to double its amount. If the pledge be not redeemed
within two years, it falls to the pawnbroker. Government
fixes the interest. The proprietor takes the same position as a
capitalist owning a bank in the West, and a samshu distiller
takes an equal place in local esteem.

The prevalence of suicide is a feature of Mukden as of most
Chinese cities. Certain peculiarities of Chinese justice render
it a favorite way of wreaking spite upon an employer or neigh-
bor, who is haunted besides by the spirit of the self-murderer.
Hence servants angry with their masters, shopmen with their
employers, wives with their husbands, and above all, daughters-
in-law with their mothers-in-law, show their spite by dying on
their premises, usually by opium, or eating the tops of lucifer
matches ! It is quite a common thing for a person who has a
grudge against another to go and poison himself in his court-
yard, securing revenge first by the mandarin's inquiry and
next by the haunting terrors of his malevolent spirit. Young
girls were daily, poisoning themselves with lucifer matches to
escape from the tyranny of mothers-in-law and leave unpleas-
antness behind them.

But it is not the seamy side which is uppermost in Mukden.

CHAPTER XVII

CHINESE TROOPS ON THE MARCH

THE weeks which I spent in Mukden were full of rumors
and excitement. A few words on the origin of the war
with Japan may make the situation intelligible.

The Tong-haks, as was mentioned in chapter xiii., had on
several occasions defeated the Royal Korean troops, and after
much hesitation the Korean King invoked the help of China.
China replied promptly by giving Japan notice of her inten-
tion to send troops to Korea on 7th June, 1894, both coun-
tries, under the treaty of Tientsin, having equal rights to do
so under such circumstances as had then arisen. On the same
day Japan announced to China a similar intention. The
Chinese General, Yi, landed at A-san with 3,000 men, and
the Japanese occupied Chemulpo and Seoul in force.

In the Chinese despatch Korea was twice referred to as '* our
tributary state." Japan replied that the Imperial Government
had never recognized Korea as a tributary state of China.

Then came three proposals from Japan for the administra-
tion of Korea, to be carried out jointly by herself and China.
These were — (i) Examination of the financial administration ;
(2) Selection of the central and local officials ; (3) The es-
tablishment of a disciplined army for national defence and the
preservation of the peace of the land.

To these proposals China replied that Korea must be left to
reform herself, and that the withdrawal of the Japanese troops
must precede any negotiations, a suggestion rejected by Japan,
wlio informed China on 14th July, that she should regard the
dispatch of any more troops to Japan as a belligerent act. On

206

Chinese Troops on the March 207

2otb July Japan demanded that the King of Korea should
order the Chinese troops to leave the country, threatening
" decisive measures " if this course were not adopted.

Meanwhile, at the request of the King, the representatives
of the Treaty Powers were endeavoring to maintain peace,
suggesting the simultaneous withdrawal of the troops of both
countries. To this China agreed, but Japan demanded delay,
and on 23rd July took the ''decisive measure" she had
threatened, assaulted and captured the Palace, and practically
made the King a prisoner, his father, the Tai-Won-Kun, at
his request, but undoubtedly at Japanese instigation, taking
nominally the helm of affairs.

After this events marched with great rapidity. On 25th
July the transport Kowshing, flying the British flag and carry-
ing 1,200 Chinese troops, was sunk with great loss of life by
the Japanese cruiser Nankua, and four days later the Japanese
won the battle of A-san and dispersed the Chinese army.
Before 30th July Korea gave notice of the renunciation of the
Conventions between herself and China, which was equivalent
to renouncing Chinese sovereignty. On ist August war was
declared. Of the sequence of these events, and even of the
events themselves, we knew little or nothing, and up to the
middle of July Mukden kept " the even tenor of its way."

Manchuria is far less hostile to foreigners than the rest of
China, and the name ''devil" may even be used as a polite
address with the prefix of "honorable " ! No European women
had previously passed through the gate of the inner wall and
through the city on foot, but I not only was able to do so with-
out molestation, though several times only attended by my serv-
ant, but actually was able to photograph in the quieter streets,
the curiosity of the crowd being quite friendly. The Scotch
missionaries had then been established in Mukden for twenty-
two years, were on very friendly terms with the people, there
was much social intercourse, and altogether their relations with
the Chinese were unique.

2o8 Korea and Her Neighbors

Before the end of July, however, the many wild rumors
which were afloat, and the continual passage of troops on their
way to Korea (war being a foregone conclusion before it was
declared), produced a general ferment. I had to abandon
peregrinations in the city, and also photography, a hostile
crowd having mobbed me as I was " taking " the Gate of Vic-
tory, in the belief that I kept a black devil in the camera, with
such a baleful Cyclopean eye that whatever living thing it
looked on would die within a year, and any building or wall
would crumble away !

After war was declared on ist August, 1894, things grew
worse rapidly. As Japan had full command of the sea, all
Chinese troops sent to Korea were compelled to march through
Manchuria, and undisciplined hordes of Manchu soldiers from
Kirin, Tsitsihar, and othern northern cities poured through
Mukden at the rate of 1,000 a day, having distinguished them-
selves on the southern march by seizing on whatever they could
get hold of, riotously occupying inns without payment, beat-
ing the innkeepers, and wrecking Christian chapels, not from
anti-Christian but from anti foreign feeling. Their hatred of
foreigners culminated at Liau-yang, 40 miles from Mukden,
when Manchu soldiers, after wrecking the Christian chapel,
beat Mr. Wylie, a Scotch missionary, to death, and attacked
the chief magistrate for his friendliness to the *' foreign devils."

Anti-foreign feeling rose rapidly in Mukden. The servants
of foreigners, and even the hospital assistants, were insulted
in the town, and the wildest rumors concerning foreigners were
spread and believed. The friendly authorities, who took the
safety of the three mission families into serious consideration,
requested them to give up their usual journeys into the interior,
and to avoid going into the city or outside the walls. Next
the "street chapels" were closed, the native Christians, a large
body, being very apprehensive for their own safety, being re-
garded as '' one with the foreigners," who, unfortunately, were
generally supposed to be '' the same as the Japanese."

Chinese Troops on the March 209

The perils of the roads increased. Not a cart or animal was
to be seen near them. The great inns were closed or had their
shutters wrecked, and the villages and farms were deserted.
All tracks converging on Mukden were thronged with troops,
not marching, but straggling along anyhow, every tenth man
carrying a great silk banner, but few were armed with modern
weapons. I saw several regiments of fine physique without a
rifle among them ! In some, gingalls were carried by two men
each, others were armed with antique muzzle-loading muskets,
very rusty, or with long matchlocks, and some carried only
spears, or bayonets fixed on red poles. All were equipped with
such umbrellas and fans as I saw some time later in the ditches
of the bloody field of Phyong-yang. It was nothing but mur-
der to send thousands of men so armed to meet the Japanese
with their deadly Murata rifles, and the men knew it, for when
they happened to see a foreigner they made such remarks as,
" This is one of the devils for whom we are going to be shot,"
and when a large party of them, in attempting to make a for-
cible entry into the Governor-General's palace, were threat-
ened by the guard with being shot, the reply was, '' We are
going to be shot in Korea, we may as well be shot here."

The nominal pay of soldiers is higher than that of laborers,
and it was only after the defeat and the great slaughter at A-san
that there was any unwillingness to enter the ranks. The uni-
form is easy, but unfit for hard wear, and very stagey — a short,
loose, sleeved red cloak, bordered wnth black velvet, loose
blue, black, or apricot trousers, and long boots of black cotton
cloth with thick soles of quilted rag. The discipline may be
inferred from the fact that some regiments of fine physique
straggled through Mukden for the seat of war carrying rusty
muskets in one hand, and in the other poles with perches, on
which singing birds were loosely tethered ! The men fell out
of the ranks as they pleased, to buy fruit or tobacco or to
speak to friends. Yet they made a goodly scenic display in
their brilliant coloring, with their countless long banners of

210 Korea and Her Neighbors

crimson silk undulating in the breezy sunshine, and their offi-
cers with sable-tailed hats and yellow jackets riding beside
them.

Those who had rifles and modern weapons at all had them
of all makes ; so cartridges of twenty different sorts and sizes
were huddled together without any attempt at classification,
and in one open space all sorts were heaped on the ground,
and the soldiers were fitting them to their arms, sometimes
trying eight or ten before finding one to suit the weapon, and
throwing them back on the heap ! There were neither medi-
cal arrangements nor an ambulance corps, Chinese custom
being to strip the wounded and leave them, ''wounded men
being of no use." The commissariat was not only totally in-
efficient but grossly dishonest, and where stores had accumu-
lated the contractors sold them for their own benefit. Thus
there was little provision of food or fodder in advance, and in
a very short time the soldiers were robbing at large, and eat-
ing the horses and transport mules. The Chinese soldiers, bad
as their drill and discipline are, are regarded by European offi-
cers as ''excellent material," but the Manchus of the North
(Tartars) are a shambling, disorderly, insubordinate horde,
dreaded by peaceable citizens, presuming on their Imperial
relationship, and in disturbed times little better than licensed
brigands.

Among the first troops to leave the city was the Fengtien
Chinese brigade of cavalry 5,000 strong, under General Tso,
a brave and experienced officer, who was at once feared and
trusted, so that when he fell with his face to the foe at Phyong-
yang, his loss demoralized the army, and the Japanese showed
their appreciation of him by erecting an obelisk to his mem-
ory. His brigade was in a state of strict discipline, admirably
drilled, and on the whole well armed. The troopers were
mounted on active, well-built ponies, a little over 13 hands
high, up to great weight. After leaving Mukden they were
entangled in a quagmire which extended for 100 miles, and

CHINESE SOLDIERS

Chinese Troops on the March 211

the telegrams of disaster were ominous. On the first day their
commander beheaded six men for taking melons without pay-
ment, and on the second fourteen were decapitated for deser-
tion.

After General Tso's departure with his disciplined force the
disorder increased, and the high officials, being left with few
reliable soldiers, became alarmed for their own positions, the
hatred and jealousy between the Chinese and Manchu troops
not only constituting one of the great difficulties of the war,
but threatening official safety.

Rumors of disaster soon began to circulate, and with each
one the ferment increased, and an Imperial proclamation sent
by courier from Peking in the interests of foreigners, declar-
ing that the Emperor was only at war with the " rebel wojeii "
(dwarfs), and was at peace with all other nations, did little to
allay it. The able-bodied beggars and unemployed coolies in
the city were swept into the army, and were sent off after three
weeks' drill. The mule-carts of Mukden and the neighborhood
were requisitioned for transport, paralyzing much of the trade
of the city. Later, many of these carts were burned as fuel
to cook the mules for the starving troops. As Manchu soldiers
continued to pour in, the shops were closed and the streets
deserted at their approach, and many of the merchants fled to
the hills. A Japanese occupation, ensuring security and order,
came to be hoped for by many sufferers. The price of pro-
visions rose, because the country people had either been robbed
of all or did not dare to bring them in, and even the hospital
and dispensary for the same reason began to be scantily at-
tended. After Mr. Wylie's murder, things became increas-
ingly serious, and by the end of August it became apparent to
the authorities that the safety of foreigners would be jeopard-
ized by remaining much longer in Mukden. Somewhat later
they left, Dr. Ross and Dr. Christie remaining behind for a
short time at the special request of the Governor. I left on
20th August, and though my friends were very anxious about

212 Korea and Her Neighbors

my safety, I reached Newchwang five days later, having en-
countered no worse risk than that of an attack by pirates, who
captured some junks with some loss of life, after I had eluded
them by travelling at night.

CHAPTER XVIII

NAGASAKI — WLADIVOSTOK

AFTER the collapse of the rumor regarding the landing of
the Japanese in force on the shores of the Gulf of Pe-
chili, which obtained credence for nearly a fortnight in the
Far East, fluttered every Cabinet in Europe, forced even so
cool and well-informed a man as Sir Robert Hart into hasty
action, and produced a hurried exodus of Europeans from
Peking and a scare generally among the foreign residents in
North China, I returned from Peking to Chefoo to await the
course of events.

The war, its requirements, and its uncertainties disarranged
the means of ocean transit so effectually that, after hanging on
for some weeks, in the midst of daily rumors of great naval
engagements, for a steamer for Wladivostok, I only succeeded
in getting a passage in a small German boat which reluctantly
carried one passenger, and in which I spent a very comfortless
five days, in stormy weather, varied by the pleasant interlude
of a day at Nagasaki, then in the full glory of the chrysan-
themum season, and aflame with scarlet maples. Lighted,
cleaned, and policed to perfection, without a hole or a heap,
this trim city of dwarfs and dolls contrasts agreeably with the
filth, squalor, loathsomeness, and general abominableness
which are found in nearly all Chinese cities outside the foreign
settlements.

Chinese moved about the streets with an air as of a ruling
race, and worked at their trades and pursued the important
calling of compradores with perfect freedom from annoyance,
the only formality required of them being registration ; while

213

214 Korea and Her Neighbors

from China all the Japanese had fled by the desire of their
consuls, not always unmolested in person and property, and
any stray ''dwarf" then found in a Chinese city would have
been all but certain to lose his life.

The enthusiasm for the war was still at a white heat. Gifts
in money and kind fell in a continual shower on the Nagasaki
authorities, nothing was talked of but military successes, and
a theatre holding 3,000 was giving the profits of two daily
performances to crowded audiences in aid of the War Fund.
The fact that ships were only allowed to enter the port by day-
light, and were then piloted by a Government steam-launch in
charge of a "torpedo pilot," was the only indication in the
harbor of an exceptional state of things.

It was warm autumn weather at Nagasaki, but when I
reached Wladivostok the hills which surround its superb har-
bor were powdered with the first snows of winter, and a snow-
storm two days later covered the country to a depth of 18
inches. Wooded islands, wooded bays, wooded hills, deep
sheltered channels and inlets, wooded to the water's edge,
bewilder a stranger, then comes Fort Godobin, and by a
sharp turn the harbor is entered, one of the finest in the world,
two and a half miles long by nearly one wide, with deep water
everywhere, so deep that ships drawing 25 feet lie within a
stone's throw of the wharves, and moor at the Government pier.

The first view of Wladivostok ("Possession of the East ")
is very striking, although the vandalism of its builders has
deprived it of its naturally artistic background of wood.
Otherwise the purple tone of the land and the blue crystal of
the water reminded me of some of our Nova Scotian harbors.
There is nothing Asiatic about the aspect of this Pacific
capital, and indeed it is rather Transatlantic than European.
Seated on a deeply embayed and apparently landlocked
harbor, along the shores of which it straggles for more than 3
miles, climbing audaciously up the barren sides of denuded
hills, irregular, treeless — lofty buildings with bold fronts,

Nagasaki — Wladivostok 215

Government House, " Kuntz and Albers," the glittering
domes of a Greek cathedral, a Lutheran church, Government
Administrative Offices, the Admiralty, the Arsenal, the Cadet
School, the Naval Club, an Emigrant Home, and the grand
and solid terminus and offices of the Siberian Railway, rising
out of an irregularity which is not picturesque, attract and hold
the voyager's attention.

Requesting to be taken at once to the Customs, the bewil-
dered air of astonishment with which my request was met in-
formed me that Wladivostok had up to that time been a, free
port, and that I was at liberty to land unquestioned. After
thumping about for some time among a number of stout
sampans in the midst of an unspeakable Babel, I was hauled
on shore by a number of laughing, shouting, dirty Korean
youths, who, after exchanging pretty hard blows with each
other for my coveted possessions, shouldered them and ran off
with them in different directions, leaving me stranded with the
tripod of my camera, to which I had clung desperately in the
melee. There were droskies not far off, and four or five
Koreans got hold of me, one dragging me towards one vehicle,
others to another, yelling Korean into my ears, till a Cossack
policeman came and thumped them into order. There were
hundreds of them on the wharf, and except that they were
noisier and more aggressive, it was like landing at Chemulpo.
Getting into a drosky, I said, "Golden Horn Hotel," in my
most distinct English, then " Hotel Corne d'or," in my most
distinct French. The moiijik nodded and grinned out of his
fur hood, and started at a gallop in the opposite direction ! I
clutched him, and made emphatic signs, speech being useless,
and he turned and galloped in a right direction, but stopped
at the disreputable doorway of one of the lowest of the many
drinking saloons with which Wladivostok is infested.

There all my Koreans reappeared, vociferating and excited.
I started the moiijik off again at a gallop, the drosky jumping
ruts and bounding out of holes with an energy of elasticity

2i6 Korea and Her Neighbors

which took my breath away, the Koreans racing. More
gallops, more stoppages at pothouses, and in this fashion I
reached at last the Golded Horn Hotel — a long, rambling,
" disjaskit " building, with a shady air of disreputableness
hanging about it, — the escort of Koreans still good-natured
and vociferous. The landlady emerged. I tried her in
English and French, but she knew neither. The monjik
shouted at us both in Russian, a little crowd assembled, each
man trying to put matters straight, and when every moment
made them more entangled, and the inoiijik was gathering up
his reins to gallop off on a further quest, a Russian officer came
up, and in excellent English asked if he could help me, inter-
preted my needs to the lady, lent me some kopecks with which
to appease the Koreans and the moujik, and gave me the en-
joyment of listening to my own blessed tongue, which I had
not heard for five days.

By a long flight of stairs, past a great bar and dining-room,
where vodka was much en evidence, even in the forenoon, past
a billiard-room, occupied even at that early hour, and through
a large, dark, and dusty theatre, I attained my rooms, a
"parlor" and bedroom en suite, opening on and looking out
upon a yard with pigsties. There were five doors, not one of
which would lock. The rooms were furnished in Louis
Quatorze style, much gilding and velvet, all ancient and
dusty. They looked as if they had known tragedies, and
might know them again. The barrier of language was impass-
able, and I must be unskilled in the use of signs, for I quite
failed to make any one understand that I wanted food.

I went out, cashed a circular note at the great German house
of Kuntz and Albers, the " Whiteleys " of Eastern Siberia,
where all the information that I then needed was given in the
most polite way, found it impossible anywhere else to make
myself understood in English or French, failed in an attempt
to buy postage stamps or to get food, delivered the single letter
of introduction which I had somewhat ungraciously accepted,

Nagasaki — Wladivostok 217

and returned to my meludramatic domicile to consider the
possibilities of travel, which at that moment were not en-
couraging.

Before long Mr. Charles Smith, the oldest foreign resident
in Wladivostok, to whom my letter was addressed, called, a
kindly and genial presence, and, as I afterwards found, full of
good deeds and benevolence. He took me at once to call on
General Unterberger, the Governor of the Maratime Province.
I think I never saw so gigantic a man — military, too, from his
spurs to his coat collar. As he rose to receive me he looked
as if his head might eventually touch the lofty ceiling.

Mr. Smith is a persona grata in Wladivostok, and very
much so with the Governor, who consequently received me
with much friendliness, and asked me to let him know my
plans. I explained what I wanted to do, subject to his ap-
proval, and presented my credentials, which were of the best.
He said that he quite approved of my project, and would do
anything he could to help me, and wrote on the spot a letter
to the Frontier Commissioner, but he added that the disorgan-
ized and undisciplined state of the Chinese army near the
frontier might render some modification of my plan neces-
sary, as I afterwards found. The Governor and his wife speak
excellent English, and the social intercourse which I had with
them afterwards was most agreeable and instructive.

During the afternoon Mr. Smith returned, and saying that
he and his wife could not endure my staying in that hotel,
took me away to his home high up on a steep hillside, with a
glorious view of the city and harbor, and of which it is diffi-
cult to say whether the sunshine were brighter within or with-
out. Under such propitious circumstances my two visits
became full of sunny memories, and I may be pardoned if I
see Wladivostok a little cottleur de rose ; for the extraordinary
kindness which dogs and shadows the traveller in the Far East
were met with there in perfection, and where I was received
by strangers I left highly valued friends.

2i8 Korea and Her Neighbors

After a snowstorm splendid weather set in. The snow pre-
vented dust blasts, the ordinary drawback of an Eastern
Siberian winter, the skies were brilliant and unclouded, the
sunsets carnivals of color, the air exhilarating, the mercury at
night averaging 20°, there was light without heat, the main
road was full of sleighs going at a gallop, their bells making
low music, all that is unsightly was hidden, and this weather
continued for five weeks !

"The Possession of the East" is nothing if not military
and naval. Forts, earthworks, at which it is prudent not to
look too long or intently, great military hospitals, huge red
brick barracks in every direction, offices of military adminis-
tration, squads of soldiers in brown ulsters and peaked pasha-
liks, carrying pickaxes or spades on their shoulders,^ sappers
with their tools, in small parties, officers, mostly with port-
folios or despatch boxes under their arms, dashing about in
sleighs, and the prohibition of photography, all indicate its
fortress character. Certainly two out of every three people in
the streets are in uniform, and the Cossack police, who
abound, are practically soldiers.

Naval it is also. There are ships of war in and out of com-
mission, a brand-new admiralty, a navy yard, a floating dock,
a magnificent dry dock, only just completed, and a naval
clubhouse, which is one of the finest buildings in Wladivos-
tok. No matter that Nature closes the harbor from Christmas
to the end of March ! Science has won the victory, and the

1 The Russian soldier does a great amount of day labor. Far from
disporting himself in brilliant uniform before the admiring eyes of boys
and " servant girls," he digs, builds, carpenters, makes shoes and harness,
and does a good civil day's work in addition to his military duties, and is
paid for this as " piecework " on a fixed scale, his daily earnings being
duly entered in a book. When he has served his time these are handed
over to him, and a steady, industrious man makes enough to set himself
up in a small business or on a farm. Vodka and schnaps are the Russian
soldier's great enemies.

Nagasaki — Wladivostok 219

port has been kept open for the last two winters by means of a
powerful ice-breaker and the services of the troops in towing
the blocks of ice out to sea. Large steamers of the "Volun-
teer Fleet" leave Odessa and Wladivostok monthly or fort-
nightly. As the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Rail-
way, Wladivostok aspires to be what she surely will be — at
once the Gibraltar and Odessa of the Far East, one of the
most important of commercial emporiums, as the ''distribu-
ting point" for the commerce of that vast area of prolific
country which lies south of the Amur. Possibly a branch
line to Port Shestakoff in Ham-gyong Do may enable the
Government to dispense with the services of the ice-breaker !

The progress of the city is remarkable. The site, then a
forest, was only surveyed in i860. In 1863 many of the
trees were felled and some shanties were erected. Later than
that a tiger was shot on the site of the new Government House,
and a man leaving two horses to be shod outside the smithy
had them both devoured by tigers. Gradually the big oaks
and pines were cleared away, and wooden houses were slowly
added, until 1872, when the removal of the naval establish-
ment of 60 men from Nicolaeffk on the Amur to the new set-
tlement gave it a decided start. Li 1878 it had a population
of 1,400. Li 1897 its estimated civil population was 25,000,
including 3,000 Koreans, who have their own settlement a
mile from the city, and are its draymen and porters, and 2,000
Chinese. The latter keep most of the shops, and have ob-
tained a monopoly of the business in meat, fish, game, fruit,
vegetables, and other perishable commodities, their guild be-
ing strong enough to squeeze the Russians out of the trade in
these articles, which are sold in four large wooden buildings
by the harbor known as the ** Bazar." There are some good
Japanese shops, but the Japanese are usually domestic servants at
high wages, and after a few years return to enjoy their savings
in their own country. A naturalized German is the only British
subject, and my host and his family are the only Americans.

220 Korea and Her Neighbors

The capital has two subsidized and two independent lines
of steamers, 700 families of Russian assisted emigrants enter
Primorsk annually, each head of a household being required
to be the possessor of 600 roubles C;£6o), and from 8,000 to
10,000 Chinese from the Shan-tung province arrive every
spring to fulfil labor contracts, returning to China in Decem-
ber, carrying out of the country from 25 to 50 dollars each,
convict labor from the penal settlement of Saghalien having
been abandoned as impracticable.

The Chinese shops, which are a feature of Wladivostok, un-
dersell both Russians and Germans, and have an increasing
trade. Kuntz and Albers, a Hamburg firm of importers,
bankers, shipping agents, and Whiteleyism in general, with
sixty clerks, mostly German, with a few Russians, Danes, and
Koreans, conduct an enormous wholesale and retail business
in a "palatial" pile of brick and stone buildings, and has
sixteen branch houses in Eastern Siberia, and the German firm
of Langalutje runs them very closely.

The railway station and offices are solid and handsome ; an
admirably built railroad, open to the Ussuri Bridge, 186 miles,
and progressing towards the Amur with great rapidity, points
to a new commercial future ; streets of shops and dwelling-
houses, in which brick and stone are fast replacing wood, are
extending to the north, east, and west, and along the Gulf of
Peter the Great, for fully three miles ; and new and handsome
official and private edifices of much pretension were being
rapidly completed. One broad road, with houses sometimes
on one, sometimes on both sides, running along the hillside
for 2 miles at a considerable height, is the " Main Street" or
"High Street" of Wladivostok. Along it are built most of
the public buildings, and the great shops and mercantile
offices. It is crossed by painfully steep roads climbing up the
hill and descending with equal steepness to the sea. There
are two or three parallel roads of small importance.

The builder was at work in all quarters, and the clink of

Nagasaki — Wladivostok 221

the mason's trowel and the ring of the carpenter's hammer
were only silent for a few hours during the night. Several of
Government buildings were barely finished, and were occupied
before they were painted and stuccoed. Building up and
pulling down were going on simultaneously. Roads were
being graded, culverts and retaining walls built, and wooden
houses showed signs of disappearing from the principal thor-
oughfare. There was a " boom " in real property. The
value of land has risen fabulously. "Lots" which were
bought in 1864 for 600 and 3,000 roubles are now worth 12,-
000 and 20,000, and in the centre of the town land is not to
be bought at any price.

Newness, progress, hopefulness are characteristics of civil
Wladivostok. It has the aspect of a growing city in the
American Far West. Few things are finished and all are go-
ing ahead. The sidewalks are mostly narrow, and composed
of rough planks, with a tendency to tip up or down, but here
and there is a fine piece of granite flagging 10 feet wide.
The hotels have more of the shady character of "saloons" or
barrooms than of anything reputable or established. Hand-
some houses of brick and stone shoulder wooden shanties.
Fashionable carriages or sleighs bounce over ungraded streets.
The antediluvian ox-cart with its Korean driver bumps and
creaks through the streets alongside of the troika, with its
three galloping horses in showy harness, and its occupants in
the latest and daintiest of Parisian costumes.

But the all-pervading flavor of militarism overpowers the
suggestion of the American Far West. The first buildings on
the barren coast are military hospitals and barracks, and bar-
racks thicken as the city is approached. The female element
is in a remarkable minority. The dull roll of artillery and
commissariat wagons, the tramp, morning and night, of brown
battalions, and the continual throb of drum and blare of
trumpet and bugle, recall one to the fact that this is the capital
of Russia's vast, growing, aspiring. Pacific Empire.

222 Korea and Her Neighbors

Theatricals, concerts, and balls fill up the winter season.
Except on the itw days on which snow falls, the skies are
cloudless, the temperature is not seriously below zero, and the
dryness of the air is very invigorating. In winters, happily
somewhat exceptional, in which there is no snowfall, and the
strong winds create dust-storms, the climate is less agreeable.
Spring is abrupt and pleasant, and autumn is a fine season, but
summer is hot, damp, and misty.

A fine Greek cathedral, with many domes and lofty gilded
crosses, which gleam mysteriously in the sunset when the
gloom of twilight has wrapped all else, a prominent Lutheran
church, and a Chinese joss-house, provide for the religious
needs of the population. The Governor of the Maritime
Province, several of the leading, and many of the lower offi-
cials are of German origin from the Baltic provinces, Luther-
ans, and possibly imbued with a few liberal ideas. But among
the kindly, cultured, and agreeable people whose acquaintance
I made in ^Vladivostok one peculiarity impressed me forcibly
— the absolute stagnation of thought, or the expression of it,
on politics and all matters connected with them, the adminis-
tration of government, religion, the orthodox church, dissent,
home and foreign policy, etc. It is true that certain subjects,
and these among the most interesting, are carefully eliminated
from conversation, and that to introduce any one of them
might subject the offender to social ostracism.

CHAPTER XIX

KOREAN SETTLERS IN SIBERIA

THE chief object of my visit to Russian Manchuria was to
settle for myself by personal investigation the vexed
question of the condition of those Koreans who have found
shelter under the Russian flag, a number estimated in Seoul at
20,000. It was there persistently said that Russia was banish-
ing them in large numbers, and that several thousands of them
had already recrossed the Tumen, and were in such poverty
that the King of Korea had sent agents to the north who were
to settle them on lands in Ham-gyong Do.

But in Wladivostok the servant-interpreter difficulty was ab-
solutely insurmountable. No efforts on the part of my friends
could obtain what did not exist, and I was on the verge of
giving up what proved a very interesting journey, when the
Director of the Siberian Telegraph Lines very kindly liberated
the senior official in his department, who had not had a holi-
day for many years, to go with me. Mr. Heidemann, a Ger-
man from the Baltic provinces, spoke German, Russian, and
English with nearly equal ease, and as a Russian official was
able to make things smoother than they might otherwise have
been in a very rough part of Primorsk. He was tall, good-
looking, and verging on middle age, very gentlemanly, never
failed in any courtesy, understood how to manage moiijiks,
and was a capable and willing interpreter ; but he was official,
reticent, and uninterested, and gave me the impression of be-
ing frozen into his uniform !

Fortified as to my project by the cordial approval of the

223

224 Korea and Her Neighbors

Governor, the courtesy of the Telegraphi Department, and the
singular splendor of the weather, I left Wladivostok by a red
sunrise in a small steamer, which accomplished the 60 miles
to Possiet Bay in seven hours, landing us in a deep inlet of
clear water and white sand, soon to be closed by ice, at the
foot of low and absolutely barren hills fringing off into sandy
knolls, where Koreans with their ox-carts awaited the steamer.
A well spread tea-table at the house of the Russian postmaster
was very welcome. Such a strong-looking family I had seldom
seen, but afterwards I found that size and strength are charac-
teristic of the Russian settlers in Primorsk.

Possiet Bay is a large military station of fine barracks and
storehouses. It scarcely seemed to possess a civil population,
but there are Korean settlements at no great distance, from
which much of the beef supply of Wladivostok is derived.
We met a number of strong, thriving-looking Koreans driving
60 fine fat cattle down to the steamer.

The post wagon, in which we were cramped up among and
under the mail-bags, took us at a two hours' gallop along
frozen inlets of the sea and across frozen rivers, over grassy,
hilly country, scarcely enlivened by Korean farms in the val-
leys, to Nowo Kiewsk, which we reached after nightfall, and
were hospitably received by the representative of Messrs.
Kuntz and Albers, whose large brick and stone establishment
is the prominent object in the settlement.

Nowo Kiewsk is a great military post, to which 1,000
civilians, chiefly Koreans and Chinese, have been attracted by
the prospect of gain. Koreans indeed form the bulk of this
population, and do all the hauling of goods and fuel with their
ox-teams. The centre of the town is a great dusty slope inter-
sected by dusty and glaring roads, which resound at intervals
from early morning till sunset with the steady tramp of brown-
ulslered battalions. Between Possiet Bay and Nowo Kiewsk
there were 10,000 infantry and artillery, and at the latter post
8 pieces of field artillery and 24 two-wheeled ammunition

Korean Settlers in Siberia 225

wagons. Barracks for 10,000 more nien were in course of
rapid construction. Long wooden sheds shelter the artillery
ponies, and villages of low mud houses of two rooms each,
with windows consisting of a single small pane of glass, the
families of soldiers. There are great drill and parade grounds
and an imposing Greek church of the usual pattern.

With its great open spaces and wide streets, Nowo Kiewsk
looks laid out for futurity, straggling along a treeless and
bushless hill slope for 2 miles. In addition to Kuntz and
Albers, with their polyglot staff of clerks, among whom a
young Korean in European dress was conspicuous for his gen-
tlemanliness and alacrity, there is another German house, and
there are forty small shops, chiefly kept by Chinese, at all of
which schnaps and vodka are sold.

I was detained there for three days while arrangements for
my southern journey were being made, and during that time
the Chief of Police, who spoke French, took me to several
Korean villages. So far as I saw and heard, the whole agri-
cultural population of the neighborhood is Korean, and is in a
very prosperous condition. There, and down to the Korean
frontier, most of these settlers are doing well, and some of them
are growing rich as contractors for the supply of meat and grain
to the Russian forces. At this they have beaten their Chinese
neighbors, and they actually go into Chinese Manchuria, buy
up lean cattle, and fatten them for beef. To those who have
only seen the Koreans in Korea, such a statement will be hardly
credible. Yet it does not stand alone, for I have it on the
best authority that the Korean settlers near Khabaroffka have
competed so successfully with the Chinese in market garden-
ing that the supplying that city with vegetables is now en-
tirely in their hands !

The Russian tarantass is one of the most uncouth of civil-
ized vehicles— all that can be said of it is that it suits the roads,
which in that region are execrable. On two sets of stout wheels
and axles, attached to each other by long solid timbers, a long

226 Korea and Her Neighbors

shallow box is secured, with one, two, or even three boards,
cushioned or not, ''roped" across it for seats. It maybe
drawn by either two or three horses abreast, one in the shafts
and one or two outside, each with the most slender attachment
to the vehicle, and his head held down and inwards by a tight
strap. This outer animal is trained to a showy gallop, which
never slackens even though the shaft horse may keep up a
decorous trot. The tarantass has no springs, and, going at a
gallop, bumps and bounces over all obstacles, holes, hillocks,
ruts and streams being alike to it.

The tarantass of the Chief of Police made nothing of the
obstacles on the road to Yantchihe, where we were to hear of
a Korean interpreter. The level country, narrowing into a
valley bordered by fine mountains, is of deep, rich black soil,
and grows almost all cereals and roots. All the crops were
gathered in and the land was neatly ploughed. Korean
hamlets with houses of a very superior class to those in Korea
were sprinkled over the country. At one of the largest
villages, where 140 families were settled on 750 acres of rich
land, we called at several of the peasant farmers' houses, and
were made very welcome, even the women coming out to
welcome the official with an air of decided pleasure. The
farmers had changed the timid, suspicious, or cringing manner
which is characteristic of them to a great extent at home, for
an air of frankness and manly independence which was most
pleasing.

The Chief of Police was a welcome visitor. The Koreans
had nothing to fear, unless his quick scent discerned an in-
sanitary odor or his eye an anwarrantable garbage heap ! The
farmyards were clean and well swept, and the domestic animals
were lodged in neat sheds. The houses, of strictly Korean
architecture, were large, with five or six rooms, carefully
thatched, and very neat within, abounding in such comforts
and plenishings as would only be dreamed of by mandarins at
home. It is insisted on, however, that, instead of the flues

Korean Settlers in Siberia 227

which heat the floors vomiting forth their smoke through many
blackened apertures in the walls, they shall unite in sending it
heavenwards through a hollow tree trunk placed at a short dis-
tance from the house. This, and cleanly surroundings in the
interests of sanitation, are the only restrictions on their Korean
habits. The clothing and dwellings are the same as in Korea,
and the *' topknot " flourishes.

A little farther on there is the large village of Yantchihe,
with a neat schoolhouse, in which Russian and Korean pupils
sit side by side at their lessons, a Greek church, singularly
rich in internal decorations, and a priest's house adjoining.
This is a very prosperous village. In the neat police station a
Korean sergeant wrote down my requirements and sent off a
smart Korean policeman in search of an interpreter. Four
hundred Koreans in this neighborhood have conformed to the
Greek Church and have received baptism. On asking the
priest, who was more picturesque than cultivated, and whose
large young family seemed oppressively large for the house,
what sort of Christians they made, he replied suggestively that
they had "a. great deal to learn," and that there would be
" more hope for the next generation."

I am not clear in my own mind as to the cause of the suc-
cess which has attended " missionary effort " at Yantchihe and
elsewhere. The statements I received on the subject differed
widely, and in most cases were made hesitatingly, as if my in-
formants were not sure of their ground. My impression is
that while Russia is tolerant of devil-worship, or any other
worship which is not subversive of the externals of morality,
♦' conformity " is required to obtain for the Korean alien those
blessings which belong to naturalization as a Russian subject.

Preparations being completed for travelling to the Korean
frontier, and into Korea as far as Kyong-heung, a town which
a Trade Convention in 1888 opened to the residence of Rus-
sian subjects in the hope of creating a market there after the
style of Kiachta, I had an interview with Mr. Matunin, the

228 Korea and Her Neighbors

Frontier Commissioner, who gave me a very unpleasant ac-
count of insecurity on the frontier owing to the lawlessness of
the Chinese troops, and an introduction to the Governor of
Kyong-heung.

A large tarantass with three ponies and a driver, a Korean
on another pony, and the Korean headman of a neighboring
village, who spoke Russian well, and our saddles were our
modest outfit. The details of the two days' journey to the
Tumen are too monotonous for infliction on the reader. The
road was infamous, and at times disappeared altogether on a
hillside or in a swamp, and swamps are frequent for the first
40 versts. The tarantass, always attempting a gallop,
bounced, bumped, and thumped, till breathing became a series
of gasps. Occasionally we stuck fast in swampy streams where
the ice was broken, being extricated by a tremendous, united,
and apparently trained, jump on the part of the ponies, which
compelled a strong grip of the vehicle with hands and feet,
and would have dislocated any other. Mr. Heidemann
smoked cigarettes unceasingly, and made no remarks.

We crossed the head of Possiet Bay and other inlets at a
gallop on thin ice, forded several streams in the aforesaid
fashion, and passed through several Korean coast villages
given up to the making of salt by a rude process, the finished
product being carted away to Hun-chun in China in baskets
of finely woven reeds. These Chinese carts are drawn by
seven mules each, constantly driven at a gallop.

After 30 versts the country became very hilly, with rugged
mountains in the distance, all without a tree or bush, and covered
with coarse and fine grasses mixed up with myriads of with-
ered flower stalks of Composite and Umbelliferce, and here
and there a lonely, belated purple aster shivered in the strong
keen wind, which made an atmosphere at zero somewhat hard
to face. The valleys are flat and broad, and their rich black
soil, the product of ages of decaying vegetation, is absolutely
stoneless. Almost all crops can be raised upon it. Besides

Korean Settlers in Siberia 229

being a rich agricultural country, the region is well suited for
cattle breeding. There were large herds on the hills, and hay-
stacks thickly scattered over the landscape indicated abundance
of winter keep. The potato, which flourishes and is free from
the disease, is largely cultivated, and is now with the Koreans
an article of ordinary diet.

The whole of this fine country is settled by Koreans, for the
few hamlets of wretched, tumble-down Chinese houses are of
no account. Whether as squatters or purchasers, they are
making the best of the land. The number of their domestic
animals enables them to fertilize it abundantly ; they plough
deep, and rotate their crops, and get a splendid yield from
their lands. We halted at Saretchje, a village of 120 families,
admirably housed, and with all material comforts abounding
about them. Out of its 600 inhabitants, 450 have ^* con-
formed." The Koreans, having no religion, are apparently
not unwilling to secure the possible advantages of conversion,
and though none of the Greek priests who conversed with me
were enthusiastic about their '' consistency," it is at least more
satisfactory to see an " Ecce Homo " on the wall than the
family daemon.

At distances of 3 and 4 miles there are Korean villages, of
which prosperity in greater or less degree is a characteristic.
The houses are large and well built, and the farmyards are
well stocked with domestic animals, the people and children
are well clothed, and the village lands carefully cultivated.

A long ascent, during which the road, which for some time
had been intermittent, gradually disappeared, leads to the
summit of a high hill, from which the mountainous frontiers
of Russia, China, and Korea are seen to converge. After
losing our way and our time, and crossing several ranges of
hills without a road, just as the winter sun was setting in a
flood of red gold, glorifying the mountains on the Chinese
frontier, a turn round a blufl" revealed what is geographically
and politically a striking view.

230 Korea and Her Neighbors

The whole of the Russo-Korean frontier, 11 miles in length,
and a broad river full of sandbanks, passing through a desert
of sandhills to the steely blue ocean, lay crimson in the sun-
set. On a steep bluff above the river a tall granite slab marks
the spot where the Russian and Chinese frontiers meet.
Across the Tumen, the barren mountains of Korea loomed
purple through a haze of gold. Three empires are seen at a
glance. A small and poor Korean village is situated in a val-
ley below. Close to the Boundary Stone, on the high steep
bluff above the Tumen, there is a large mud hut from which
most of the whitewash had scaled off, with thatch held on by
straw ropes, weighted with stones.

It was a very lonely scene. A Korean ' told us that it was
absolutely impossible for us to sleep at the village. A Cos-
sack came out of the hut, took a long look at us, and returned.
Then a forlorn-looking corporal appeared, who also took a
long look, and having hospitable instincts, came up and told
us that the village was impossible except for the drivers and
horses, but that he could put us up roughly in the hut, which
consisted of one fair sized room, another very small one, and
a lean-to.

The latest English papers had stated that " Russia has lately
massed 5,000 men on the Korean frontier, and 4,000 at Hun-
chun." It is not desirable to make any inquiries about the
positions and numbers of Russian troops, and I had prudently
abstained from asking questions, and had looked forward with
interest to seeing a great display of military force. This hut
is the military post of Krasnoye Celo, and the "army" of
Russia " massed on her Korean frontier " consisted of 15 men
and a corporal, the officer being required to endure the isola-
tion of the position for six months, and the privates for one.
The roars of laughter which greeted the English statement
were not complimentary to newspaper accuracy.

The corporal's small room was of no particular shape, and
was furnished with only a deal chair and small table, and a

Korean Settlers in Siberia 231

big earthen jar of water, but it was well warmed, and had an
iron camp-bed in a recess with a wire-wove mattress, much
broken and "sagging," the sharp points of the broken wires
sticking up in several places through the one rug with which I
attempted to mollify their asperities. This recess, which just
contained the bed, was curtained off for me, and the corporal,
Mr. Heidemann, and three Korean headmen lay closely packed
on the floor. The corporal, glad to have people to talk with,
talked more than half the night, and began again before day-
break. We supped on barrack fare — black bread, barley
brose, and tea, with the addition of a little kwass, a very
slightly fermented drink, made from black bread, raisins,
sugar, and a little vodka, schnaps and vodka containing 40 per
cent, of alcohol. At 9 p.m. I was surprised and delighted with
the noble strains of a Greek Litany, chanted in well-balanced
parts from the barrack-room, the evening worship of the Cos-
sacks.

My last sunset view of the Tumen was of a sheet of ice.
The headmen of the Korean villages of Sajorni and Krasnoe,
who were in council till near midnight, thought it was impos-
sible to get across, and they said that the ferryboat was drawn
ashore and was frozen in for the winter, and that two Russian
Commissioners and a General, after waiting for three days,
had left the day before, having failed. However, yielding to
my urgency, they set all the able-bodied men of Sajorni to
work at 2 a.m. to dig the boat out, and by 7 she had moved
some yards towards the river, which, however, was still a sheet
of ice. Later, the corporal sent i4 of his men to help the
Koreans, laughingly saying that I had the " whole Russian
frontier army to get me across." At 9 word came that the
boat was nearly afloat, and we started, on horseback, with two
baggage ponies, and rode a mile over the hills and through
the prosperous Korean village of Sajorni, down to a dazzling
expanse of sand through which the Tumen flows to the sea,
there 10 miles off.

232 Korea and Her Neighbors

The river ice was breaking np into large masses under the
morning sun, and between Russia and Korea there was much
open water about 600 feet broad. The experts said if we
could get over at all it would be between noon and 2, after
which the ice would pack and freeze together again. Koreans
and Cossacks worked with a will, breaking the ice, digging
under the boat, and moving her with levers, but it was noon
before the unwieldy craft, used for the ferriage of oxen, moved
into the water, accompanied by a hearty cheer. She leaked
badly, two men were required to bale her, and the stern plat-
form, by which animals enter her, was carried away. The
baggage was carried in by men wading much over their knees,
and then came the turn of the ponies, but not the whole Rus-
sian army by force or persuasion could get those wretched
animals embarked.

After a whole hour's work and any amount of kicking,
plunging, and injuries, from getting one or two legs over the
bulwarks, and struggling back, and rolling backwards into the
river, two were apparently safe in the ferryboat, when sud-
denly they knocked over the man who held them and jumped
into the water, one blind animal being rescued with difficulty,
and the other cutting his legs considerably. The ice was then
fast forming, but the soldiers made one more attempt, which
failed, owing to what Americans would not inaptly call the
"cussedness" of the Siberian ponies. For the first time on
any journey I had to confess myself baffled, for it was impos-
sible to swim the contumacious animals across, owing to the
heavy ice floes and the low temperature of the water. I had
sat on my pony watching these proceedings for nearly four
hours, watching too the grand Korean mountains as they swept
down to the icy river in every shade of cobalt blue, varied by
indigo shadows of the white cloud masses which sailed slowly
across the heavenly sky. At that point from which I most re-
luctantly turned back, the Tumen has a large volume of water,
but above and below sandbanks render the navigation so diffi-

Korean Settlers in Siberia 233

cult that it is only in the rainy season that flat-bottomed boats
make the attempt, and not always with success, to reach the
Korean town of K'wan, 80 versts, or something over 50 miles,
above Krasnoye Celo. The Chinese, in the insane notion
that Japan was about to land a large force on the south bank
of the Tumen, had seized all the boats above the Russian post.

I photographed the ''Russian army" and the barracks as
well as the Boundary Stone, and the corporal slouching against
the scaly forlorn quarters on the desolate height in an attitude
of extreme dejection, as we drove away leaving him to his
usual dulness.

The days of the return journey gave me a good opportunity
of learning something of the condition of the Koreans under
another Government than their own. So long ago as 1863, 13
families from Ham-gyong Do crossed the frontier and settled
on the river Tyzen Ho, a little to the north of Possiet Bay.
By 1866 there were 100 families there, very poor, among
which the Russian Government distributed cattle and seed for
cultivation.

During 1869, a year of very great scarcity in Northern
Korea, 4,500 Koreans migrated, hunger-driven, into Pri-
morsk, some 3,800 of them being absolutely destitute. These
had to be supported, no easy thing, as the territory, only
ceded to Russia a few years before, was but a thinly peopled
wilderness, and was also suffering from a bad harvest.

In 1897 there were in Primorsk 32 village districts, i.e. vil-
lages with outlying hamlets, divided into 5 administrative dis-
tricts. Besides these, one village belongs to the city of Kha-
baroffka on the Amur, and there are large Korean settlements
adjacent to Wladivostok and Nikolskoye. The total number of
Korean immigrants is estimated at from 16,000 to 18,000. It
must be remembered that several thousands of these were liter-
ally paupers, and that they subsisted for nearly a year on the
charity of the Russian authorities, and after that were indebted
to them for seed corn. They settled on the rich lands of the

234 Korea and Her Neighbors

Siberian valleys mostly as squatters, but have been unmolested
for many years. Many have purchased the lands they occupy,
and in other cases villages have acquired community rights to
their adjacent lands. It is the intention of Government that
squatting shall gradually be replaced by purchase, the purchas-
ers receiving legal title-deeds.

These alien settlers practically enjoy autonomy. At the
head of each district is an Elder or Headman, with from one
to three assistants according to its size. The police and their
officers are Korean. In each district there are two or three
judges with their clerks, who try minor offences. The head-
men, who are responsible for order and the collection of taxes,
are paid salaries, or receive various allowances. All these
officials are Koreans, and are elected by the people themselves
from among themselves. The Government taxation is lo
roubles (about ^\) on each farm per annum. The local tax-
ation, settled by the villagers in council for their own pur-
poses, such as roads, ditches, bridges, and schools, is limited
to 3 roubles per farm per annum. Men who are not land-
holders pay from i to 2 roubles per annum.

Koreans settled in Siberia prior to 1884 can claim rights as
Russian subjects, and at this time those who can prove that
they have been settled on purchased lands for ten years can do
so, as well as certain others, well reported of as being of set-
tled lives and good conduct. Owing to the steady influx of
settlers from Southern Russia, the rich lands near the railroad
are required for colonization, and further immigration from
Korea has been prohibited. The sending of Koreans who are
either squatters or of unsettled lives to the Amur Province is
under discussion.

The villages between Krasnoye Celo and Nowo Kiewsk are
fair average specimens of Russo-Korean settlements. The
roads are fairly good, and the ditches which border them well
kept. Sanitary rules are strictly enforced, the headman being
made responsible for village cleanliness. Unlike the poor,

Korean Settlers in Siberia 235

ragged, filthy villages of the peninsula, these are well built in
Korean style, of whitewashed mud and laths, trimly thatched,
the compounds or farmyards are enclosed by whitewashed
walls, or high fences of neatly woven reeds, and look as if
they were swept every morning, and the farm buildings are
substantial and well kept. Even the pigsties testify to the
Argus eyes of the district chiefs of police.

Most of the dwellings have four, five, and even six rooms,
with papered walls and ceilings, fretwork doors and windows,
"glazed" with white translucent paper, finely matted floors,
and an amount of plenishings rarely to be found even in a
mandarin's house in Korea. Cabinets, bureaus, and rice
chests of ornamental wood with handsome brass decorations,
low tables, stools, cushions, brass samovars, dressers display-
ing brass dinner services, brass bowls, china, tea-glasses, brass
candlesticks, brass kerosene lamps, and a host of other things,
illustrate the capacity to secure comfort. Pictures of the Tsar
and Tsaritza, of the Christ, and of Greek saints, and framed
cards of twelve Christian prayers, replace the coarse daubs
of the family demons in very many houses. Out of doors
full granaries, ponies, mares with foals, black pigs of an im-
proved breed, draught oxen, and fat oxen for the Wladivostok
market, with ox-carts and agricultural implements, attest solid
material prosperity. It would be impossible for a traveller to
meet with more cordial hospitality and more cleanly and com-
fortable accommodation than I did in these Korean homes.

But there is more than this. The air of the men has under-
gone a subtle but real change, and the women, though they
nominally keep up their habit of seclusion, have lost the hang-
dog air which distinguishes them at home. The suspicious-
ness and indolent conceit, and the servility to his betters,
which characterize the home-bred Korean have very generally
given place to an independence and manliness of manner
rather British than Asiatic. The alacrity of movement is a
change also, and has replaced the conceited swing of \ht yang-

236 Korea and Her Neighbors

ban and tlie heartless lounge of the peasant. There are many
chances for making money, and there is neither mandarin nor
yang-ban to squeeze it out of the people when made, and com-
forts and a certain appearance of wealth no longer attract the
repacious attentions of officials, but are rather a credit to a
man than a source of insecurity. All who work can be com-
fortable, and many of the farmers are rich and engage in
trade, making and keeping extensive contracts.

Those Koreans who are not settled on lands chiefly in the
direction of the Chinese frontier, and who subsist by wood
cutting and hauling, are less well off, and their hamlets have
something of squalor about them.

In Korea I had learned to think of Koreans as the dregs of
a race, and to regard their condition as hopeless, but in Pri-
morsk I saw reason for considerably modifying my opinion.
It must be borne in mind that these people, who have raised
themselves into a prosperous farming class, and who get an
excellent character for industry and good conduct alike from
Russian police officials, Russian settlers, and military officers,
were not exceptionally industrious and thrifty men. They
were mostly starving folk who fled from famine, and their
prosperity and general demeanor give me the hope that their
countrymen in Korea, if they ever have an honest adminis-
tration and protection for their earnings, may slowly develop
into men.

In parts of Western Asia I have had occasion to note the
success of Russian administration in conquered or acquired
provinces, and with subject races, specially her creation of an
orderly, peaceful, and settled agricultural population out of
the nomadic and predatory tribes of Turkestan. Her success
with the Korean immigrants is in its way as remarkable, for
the material is inferior. She is firm where firmness is neces-
sary, but outside that limit allows extreme latitude, avoids
harassing aliens by petty prohibitions and irksome rules, en-
courages those forms of local self-government which suit the

Korean Settlers in Siberia 237

genius and habits of different peoples, and trusts to time, edu-
cation, and contact with other forms of civilization to amend
what is reprehensible in customs, religion, and costume.

A few days later I went to Hun-chun on the frontier of
Chinese Manchuria, from its position an important military
post, and was most hospitably received by the Commandant
and his married aide-de-camp. There, as everywhere in Pri-
morsk, and from the civil as well as the military authorities, I
not only received the utmost kindness, courtesy, and hospital-
ity, but information was frankly given on the various topics I
was interested in, and help towards the attainment of my ob-
jects. Hun-chun is in the midst of mountainous country, de-
nuded of wood in recent years, and abounding in rich, well-
watered valleys inhabited only by Koreans. A wilder, drear-
ier, and more wind-swept situation it would be hard to find.

Instead of "4,000 troops" there were only 200 Cossacks,
housed in a good brick barrack, one-half of which is a much
decorated chapel, besides which there are only open thatched
sheds for their hardy, active Baikal horses, a small, well-
arranged hospital, a wooden house for the Colonel Command-
ant, and some terra-cotta mud-houses for the officers and
married troopers. The whole Russian military force from
Hun-chun to the Amur consisted of 1,500 Cossacks, distributed
among thirty frontier posts. The Commandant told me that
their chief duty at that time was the *' daily" arresting of
Chinese brigands who crossed the frontier to harry the Korean
villages, and who, on being marched back and handed over to
the mandarins, were at once liberated to repeat their forays.

The Chinese had "massed" several thousand of their
Manchu troops at Hun-chun, and they had created such a
reign of terror that the peasant farmers had deserted their
homes over a large area of country. The soldiers, robbed by
their officers of their nominal pay, and only half fed, relied
on unlimited pillage for making up the deficiency, and neither
women nor property were safe from their brutality and violence.

238

Korea and Her Neighbors

So desperately undisciplined were they that only a few days
before the Secretary and Interpreter of the Russian frontier
Commissioner at Nowo Kiewsk, visiting Hun-chun on official
business, narrowly escaped actual violence at their hands, and
the Chinese Governor told them that he had no control at all
over the troops. It was only the rigid discipline of the Cos-
sacks which prevented scrimmages which might have produced
a serious conflagration.

KOREAN SETTLERS' HOUSE.

CHAPTER XX

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD

AFTER returning to Wladivostok, accompanied by a young
Danish gentleman who was kindly lent to me by Messrs.
Kuntz and Albers, and who spoke English and Russian, I
spent a week on the Ussuri Railway, the eastern section of the
Trans-Siberian Railway, going as far as the hamlet of Ussuri
on the Ussuri River at the great Ussuri Bridge, beyond which
the line, though completed for 50 versts, was not open for
traffic. Indeed, up to that point from Nikolskoye trains were
run twice daily rather to ''settle the line " than for profit, and
their average speed was only twelve miles an hour. The
weather was brilliant, varied by a heavy snowstorm.

The present Tsar is understood to be enthusiastic about this
railroad. During his visit to Wladivostok in 1891, when
Tsarevitch, he inaugurated the undertaking by wheeling away
the first barrowful of earth and placing the first stone in posi-
tion, after which, work was begun simultaneously at both ends.

The eastern terminus of this great railroad undertaking is
close to the sea and the Government deep-water pier, at which
the fine steamers from Odessa of the Russian *< Volunteer
Fleet " discharge their cargoes. The station is large and very
handsome, and both it and the noble administrative offices are
built of gray stone, with the architraves of the doors and
windows in red brick. Buffets and all else were in efficient
working order. In the winter of 1895-96 only third and
fourth class cars were running, the latter chiefly patronized by
Koreans and Chinese. Each third class carriage is divided
into three compartments with a corridor, and ha§ a. lavatory

239

240 Korea and Her Neighbors

and steam-heating apparatus. The backs of the seats are
hooked up to form upper berths for sleeping, and as the cars
are eight feet high they admit of broad luggage shelves above
these. The engines which ran the traffic were old American
locomotives, but those which are to be introduced, as well as
all the rolling stock, are being manufactured in the Baltic
provinces. So also are the rails, the iron and steel bridges,
the water tanks, the iron work required for stations, and all
else.

Large railway workshops with rows of substantial houses for
artisans have been erected at Nikolskoye, 102 versts from
Wladivostok, for the repairs of rolling stock on the Ussuri sec-
tion, and were already in full activity.

There is nothing about this Ussuri Railway of the newness
and provisional aspect of the Western American lines, or
even of parts of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The track
was already ballasted as far as Ussuri (327 versts), steel
bridges spanned the minor streams, and substantial stations
either of stone or decorated wood, with buffets at fixed dis-
tances, successfully compare both in stability and appearance
with those of our English branch lines. The tank houses are
of hewn stone. Houses for the employes, standing in neatly
fenced gardens, are both decorative and substantial, being
built of cement and logs protected by five coats of paint, and
contain four rooms each. The crossings are well laid and
protected. Culverts and retaining walls are of solid masonry,
and telegraph wires accompany the road, which is worked
strictly on the block system. The aspect of solidity and per-
manence is remarkable. Even the temporary bridge over the
Ussuri, 1,050 feet in length, a trestle bridge of heavy timber
to resist the impact of the ice, is so massive as to make the
great steel bridge, the handsome abutments of which were al-
ready built, appear as if it would be a work of supererogation.

Up to that point there are no serious embankments or cut-
tings, and the gradients are easy. The cost of construction

The Trans-Siberian Railroad 241

of the Ussuri section is 50,000 roubles per verst, a rouble at
this time being worth about 2s. 2d. This includes rolling
stock, stations, and all bridges except that over the Amur,
which was to cost 3,000,000 roubles, but may now be dis-
pensed with owing to the diversion of the route through Man-
churia. Convict labor was abandoned in 1894, and the line
in Primorsk is being constructed by Chinese " navvies," who
earn about 80 cents per day, and who were bearing the rigor
of a Siberian winter in well-warmed, semi-subterranean huts,
the line being pushed on as much as possible during the cold
season. For the first 102 ve7-sts, it passes along prettily wooded
shores of inlets and banks of streams, and the country is fairly
well peopled, judging from the number of sleighs and the
bustle at the six stations en route. The line as far as Nikols-
koye was opened in early November, 1893, and in a year had
earned 280,000 roubles. The last section had only been open
for eight weeks when I travelled upon it.

Nikolskoye, where I spent two pleasant days at the hospit-
able establishment of Messrs. Kuntz and Albers, is the only
place between Wladivostok and Ussuri of any present impor-
tance. It is a village of 8,000 inhabitants on a rich rolling
prairie, watered by the Siphun. It has six streets of grotesque
width, a verst and a half long each. There is no poverty. It
is a place of rapid growth and prosperity, the centre of a great
trade in grain, and has a large flour mill owned by Mr. Lind-
holm, a Government contractor. It has a spacious market-
place and bazaar, and two churches. It reminds me of parts
of Salt Lake City, and the houses are of wood, plastered and
whitewashed, with corrugated iron roofs mainly. A few are
thatched. All stand in plots of garden ground. Utilitarian-
ism is supreme. I drove for 20 miles in the region round the
settlement, and everywhere saw prosperous farms and farming
villages on the prairie, Russian and Korean, and found the
settlers kindly and hospitable, and surrounded by material
comfort. Nikolskoye is a great military station. There were

242 Korea and Her Neighbors

infantry and artillery to the number of 9,000, and there, as
elsewhere, large new barracks were being pushed to completion.
An area of 50 acres was covered with brick barracks, maga-
zines, stables, drill and parade grounds, and officers' quarters,
and the military club is a really fine building. Newness, prog-
ress, and confidence in the future are as characteristic of Nikols-
koye as of any rising town in the Far West of America.

The farther journey, occupying the greater part of two days
and a night, except when near the swamps of the Hanka Lake,
is through a superb farming region. Large villages with wind-
mills are met with along the line for the first 30 ve^sts, as far
as the buffet station of Spasskoje. The stoneless soil, a rich
loam 6 feet and more in depth, produces heavy crops of oats,
wheat, barley, maize, rye, potatoes, and tobacco. Beyond
Spasskoje and east of the Hanka Lake up to the Amur a mag-
nificent region waits to be peopled.

Well may Eastern Siberia receive the name of Russia's
** Pacific Empire," including as it does the Amur and Mari-
time provinces, with their area of 880,000 square miles, ^ rich
in gold, copper, iron, lead, and coal, and with a soil which
for a vast extent is of unbounded fertility. When China ceded
to Russia in i860 the region which we call Russian Manchuria,
she probably did so in ignorance of its vast agricultural capac-
ities and mineral wealth.

The noble Amur, with its forest-covered shores, is navigable
for 1,000 miles, and already 50 merchant steamers ply upon it,
and its great tributary the Ussuri can be navigated to within
120 miles of Wladivostok. The great basin of the Ussuri, it
is estimated, could support five million people, and from Kha-
baroffka to the Tumen, it is considered by experts that the
land could sustain from 20 to 40 to the square mile, while at
present the population of the Amur and Ussuri provinces is
only |ths of a man to the square mile !

iThe area of France is 204,000, and that of the British Isles 120,000
square miles.

The Trans-Siberian Railroad 243

Grass, timber, water, coal, minerals, a soil as rich as the
prairies of Illinois, and a climate not only favorable to agri-
culture but to human health, all await the settler, and the
broad, unoccupied, and fertile lands which Russian Manchuria
offers are clamoring for inhabitants. To set against these ad-
vantages there are the frozen waterways and the ice-bound
harbor. It is utterly impossible that an increasing population
will content itself without an outlet for its produce. A port
on the Pacific open all the year is fast becoming as much a
commercial as a political necessity, and doubtless the opening
of the Trans-Siberian Railroad four years hence will settle the
question (if it has not been settled before) and doom the policy
which has shut Russia up in regions of " thick ribbed ice" to
utter extinction.

In the Maritime Province, Russia is steadily and solidly lay-
ing the foundations of a new empire which she purposes to
make as nearly as possible a homogeneous one. *'No for-
eigner need apply" ! The emigrants, who are going out at
the rate of from 700 to 1,000 families a year, are of a good
class. Emigration is fostered in two ways. By the first, the
Government grants assisted passages to heads of families who
are possessed of 600 roubles (about ^£60 at present), which
are deposited with a Government official at Odessa, and are
repaid to the emigrant on landing at Wladivostok. The in-
dustry and thrift represented by this sum indicate a large pro-
portion of the best class of settlers. Under the second arrange-
ment, families possessed of little capital or none receive free
passages. On arriving, emigrants of both classes are lodged
in excellent emigrant barracks, and can buy the necessary
agricultural implements at cost price from a Government depot,
advice as to the purchase being thrown in. Each family re-
ceives a free allotment of from 200 to 300 acres of arable land,
and a loan of 600 roubles, to be repaid without interest in
thirty-two years, the young male colonists being exempted from
military service for the same period. Already much of the

244 Korea and Her Neighbors

land along the line as far as the Ussuri has been allotted, and
houses are rapidly springing up, and there is nothing to pre-
vent this fine country from being peopled up to the Amur, the
rivers Sungacha and Ussuri, which form the boundary of Russia
from the Hanka Lake to Khabaroffka, giving a natural protec-
tion from Chinese brigandage. In addition to direct emigra-
tion, large numbers of time-expired men, chiefly Cossacks, are
encouraged to settle on lands and do so.

It would be shortsighted to minimize the importance of the
present drift of population to Eastern Siberia, which is likely
to assume immense proportions on the opening of the railway,
or the commercial value of that colossal undertaking, which is
greatly enhanced by the treaty under which Russia has taken
powers to run the Trans-Siberian line through Chinese Man-
churia. The creation of a new route which will bring the Far
East within 6,000 miles and 16 days of London, and cheapen
the cost of the transit of passengers very considerably, cannot
be overlooked either. The railroad is being built for futurity,
and is an enterprize worthy of the great nation which under-
takes it.^

1 1 am very glad to be able to fortify my opinion of the solid and care-
ful construction of this line by that of Colonel Waters, military attache to
the British Embassy at St. Petersburg, who has recently crossed Siberia,
and desires to give emphatic testimony to " the magnificent character of
the great railway crossing Siberia," as well as by that of another recent
traveller, Mr. J. Y. Simpson, who, in Blackwood's Magazine for January,
1897, i^ ^^ article " The Great Siberian Iron Road," after a long descrip-
tion of the laborious carefulness with which the line is being built, writes
thus : " Lastly, one is impressed with the extremely Jinished nature of the
work."

CHAPTER XXI

THE king's oath — AN AUDIENCE

LEAVING Wladivostok by the last Japanese steamer of the
season, I spent two days at Won-san, little changed, ex-
cept that its background of mountains was snow-covered, that
the Koreans were enriched by the extravagant sums paid for
labor by the Japanese during the war, that business was active,
and that Japanese sentries in wooden sentry-boxes guarded the
peaceful streets. Twelve thousand Japanese troops had passed
through Won-san on their way to Phyong-yang. At Fusan,
my next point, there were 200 Japanese soldiers, new water-
works, and a military cemetery on a height, in which the
number of graves showed an enormous Japanese mortality.

Reaching Chemulpo on 5th January, 1895, via Nagaski, I
found a singular contrast to the crowd, bustle, and excitement
of the previous June. In the outer harbor there were two for-
eign warships only, in the inner three Japanese merchant
steamers. The former predominant military element was
represented by a few soldiers, ten large hospital sheds, and a
crowded cemetery, in which the Japanese military dead lie in
rows of 60, each grave marked by a wooden obelisk. The
solid and crowded Chinese quarter, with its roaring trade,
large shops, and noise of drums, gongs, and crackers, by day
and night, was silent and deserted, and not a single Chinese
was in the street as I went up to I-tai's inn. One shop had
ventured to reopen. At night, instead of throngs, noise,
lights, and jollification, there was a solitary glimmer from be-
hind a closed shutter. The Japanese occupation had been as
destructive of that quarter of Chemulpo as a mediaeval pes-
tilence.

345

246 Korea and Her Neighbors

In the Japanese quarter and all along the shore the utmost
activity prevailed. The beach was stacked with incoming and
outgoing cargo. The streets were only just passable, not alone
from the enormous traffic on bulls' and coolies' backs, but from
the piles of beans and rice which were being measured and
packed on the roadway. Prices were high, wages had more
than doubled, "squeezing" was diminished, and the Koreans
were working with a will.

I went up to Seoul on horseback, snow falling the whole
time. So safe was the country that no escort was needed, and
I rode as far as Oricol without even a mapu. The halfway
house of my first visit was a Japanese post, and going to it in
ignorance of the change, I was very kindly received by the
Japanese soldiers, who gave me tea and a brazier of charcoal.
The Seoul road, pegged out by Japanese surveyors for a rail-
road, was thickly sprinkled for the whole distance with laden
men and bulls.

At Seoul I was the guest of Mr. Hillier, the British Consul-
General, for five weeks. The weather was glorious, and the
mercury sank on two occasions to 7° below zero, the lowest
temperature on record. I received the warmest welcome from
the kindly foreign community, and was steeped in Seoul life,
the political and other interests growing upon me daily; and
having a pony and a soldier at my disposal, I saw the city in
all its turnings and windings, and the charming country out-
side the gates, and several of the Royal tombs with their fine
trees, and avenues of stately stone figures.

The stagnation of the previous winter was at an end. Japan
was in the ascendant. She had a large garrison in the capital,
some of the leading men in the Cabinet were her nominees,
her officers were drilling the Korean army, changes, if not im-
provements, were everywhere, and the air was thick with
rumors of more to come. The King, whose Royal authority
was nominally restored to him, accepted the situation, the
Queen was credited with intriguing against the Japanese, but

The King's Oath — An Audience 247

Count Inouye was acting as Japanese minister, and his firmness
and tact kept everything smooth on the surface.

On the 8th of January, 1895, I witnessed a singular cere-
mony, which may have far-reaching results in Korean history.
The Japanese having presented Korea with the gift of Inde-
pendence, demanded that the King should formally and pub-
licly renounce the suzerainty of China, and having resolved to
cleanse the Augean stable of official corruption, they com-
pelled him to inaugurate the task by proceeding in semi-state
to the Altar of the Spirits of the Land, and there proclaiming
Korean independence, and swearing before the spirits of his
ancestors to the proposed reforms. His Majesty, by exagger-
ating a trivial ailment, had for some time delayed a step which
was very repulsive to him, and even the day before the cere-
mony, a dream in which an Ancestral Spirit had appeared to
him adjuring him not to depart from ancestral ways, terrified
him from taking the proposed pledge.

But the spirit of Count Inouye proved more masterful than
the Ancestral Spirit, and the oath was taken in circumstances
of great solemnity in a dark pine wood, under the shadow of
Puk Han, at the most sacred altar in Korea, in presence of the
Court and the dignitaries of the kingdom. Old and serious
men had fasted and mourned for two previous days, and in the
vast crowd of white-robed and black-hatted men which looked
down upon the striking scene from a hill in the grounds of the
Mulberry Palace, there was not a smile or a spoken word.
The sky was dark and grim, and a bitter east wind was blow-
ing— ominous signs in Korean estimation.

The Royal procession, which had something of the aspect
of the kur-dong, was shorn of the barbaric splendor which
made that ceremonial one of the most imposing in the Eastern
world. It was, in fact, barbaric with the splendor left out ;
and there were suggestions of a new era and a forthcoming
swamping wave of Western civilization, in the presence within
the Palace gates and in the procession or a few trim, dapper,

248 Korea and Her Neighbors

blue-ulstered Japanese policemen, as the special protectors of
the Home Minister Pak-Y6ng-Ho, one of the revolutionaries
of 1884, against whom there was a vow of vengeance, though
the King had been compelled to pardon him, to reinstate his
ancestors who had been degraded, to recall him from exile,
and to confer upon him high office.

The long road outside the Palace was lined with Korean
cavalry, who turned their faces to the wall and their backs and
their ponies' tails to the King. Great numbers of Korean
soldiers carrying various makes of muskets, dressed in rusty
black, brown, and blue cotton uniforms, trousers sometimes a
foot too short, at others a foot too long, white wadded socks,
string shoes, and black felt hats of Tyrolese style, with pink
ribbon round the crowns, stood in awkward huddles, mixed up
with the newly-created Seoul police in blue European uniforms,
and a number of handsome overfed ponies of Court officials,
with saddles over a foot high, gorgeous barbaric trappings, red
pompons on their heads, and a flow of red manes. The
populace stood without speech or movement.

After a long delay and much speculation as to whether the
King at the last moment would resist the foreign pressure, the
procession emerged from the Palace gate — huge flags on trident-
headed poles, purple bundles carried aloft, a stand of stones
conveyed with much ceremony ^ — groups of scarlet- and blue-
robed men in hats of the same colors, shaped like fools' caps,
the King's personal servants in yellow robes and yellow bam-
boo hats, and men carrying bannerets. Then came the red
silk umbrella, followed not by the magnificent State chair with
its forty bearers, but by a plain wooden chair with glass sides,
in which sat the sovereign, pale and dejected, borne by only
four men. The Crown Prince followed in a similar chair.
Mandarins, ministers, and military officers were then assisted
to mount their caparisoned ponies, and each, with two attend-

• These are ancient musical instruments called by the Chinese ckHng^
and were in use at courts in the days of Confucius.

J

KOREAN THRONE.

The King's Oath — An Audience 249

ants holding his stirrups and two more leading his pony, fell
in behind the Honcie Minister, riding a dark donkey, and ren-
dered conspicuous by his foreign saddle and foreign guard.
When the procession reached the sacred enclosure, the mili-
tary escort and the greater part of the cavalcade remained out-
side the wall, only the King, dignitaries, and principal at-
tendants proceeding to the altar. The grouping of the scarlet-
robed men under the dark pines was most effective from an
artistic point of view, and from a political standpoint the
taking of the following oath by the Korean King was one
of the most significant acts in the tedious drama of the late
war.

THE king's oath.

On this 1 2th day of the 12th moon of the 503rd year of the founding
of the Dynasty, we presume to announce clearly to the Spirits of all our
Sacred Imperial Ancestors that we, their lowly descendant, received in
early childhood, now thirty and one years ago, the mighty heritage of our
ancestors, and that in reverent awe towards Heaven, and following in the
rule and pattern of our ancestors, we, though we have encountered many
troubles, have not loosed hold of the thread. How dare we, your lowly
descendant, aver that we are acceptable to the heart of Heaven ? It is
only that our ancestors have graciously looked down upon us and be-
nignly protected us. Splendidly did our ancestor lay the foundation of
our Royal House, opening a way for us his descendants through five hun-
dred years and three. Now, in our generation, the times are mightily
changed, and men and matters are expanding. A friendly Power, design-
ing to prove faithful, and the deliberations of our Council aiding thereto,
show that only as an independent ruler can we make our country strong.
How can we, your lowly descendant, not conform to the spirit of the time
and thus guard the domain bequeathed by our ancestors? How venture
not to strenuously exert ourselves and stiffen and anneal us in order to add
lustre to the virtues of our predecessors. For all time from now no other
State will we lean upon, but will make broad the steps of our country to-
wards prosperity, building up the happiness of our people in order to
strengthen the foundations of our independence. When we ponder on
this course, let there be no sticking in the old ways, no practice of ease
or of dalliance ; but docilely let us carry out the great designs of our an-

250 Korea and Her Neighbors

cestors, watching and observing sublunary conditions, reforming our in-
ternal administration, remedying there accumulated abuses.

We, your lowly descendant, do now take the fourteen clauses of the
Great Charter and swear before the Spn-its of our Ancestors in Heaven
that we, reverently trusting in the merits bequeathed by our ancestors,
will bring these to a successful issue, nor will we dare to go back on our
word. Do you, bright Spirits, descend and behold !

1. All thoughts of dependence on China shall be cut away, and a firm
foundation for independence secured.

2. A rule and ordinance for the Royal House shall be established, in
order to make clear the line of succession and precedence among the
Royal family.

3. The King shall attend at the Great Hall for the inspection of affairs,
where, after personally interrogating his Ministers, he shall decide upon
matters of State. The Queen and the Royal family are not allowed to
interfere.

4. Palace matters and the government of the country must be kept
separate, and may not be mixed up together.

5. The duties and powers of the Cabinet and of the various Ministers
shall be clearly defined.

6. The payment of taxes by the people shall be regulated by law.
Wrongful additions may not be made to the list, and no excess collected.

7. The assessment and collection of the land tax, and the disbursement
of expenditure, shall be under the charge and control of the Finance De-
partment.

8. The expenses of the Royal household shall be the first to be reduced,
by way of setting an example to the various Ministries and local offi-
cials.

9. An estimate shall be drawn up in advance each year of the expen-
diture of the Royal household and the various official establishments,
putting on a firm foundation the management of the revenue.

10. The regulations of the local officers must be revised in order to
discriminate the functions of the local officials.

11. Young men of intelligence in the country shall be sent abroad in
order to study foreign science and industries.

12. The instruction of army officers, and the practice of the methods
of enlistment, to secure the foundation of a military system.

13. Civil law and criminal law must be strictly and clearly laid down;
none must be imprisoned or fined in excess, so that security of life and
property may be ensured for all alike.

The King's Oath— An Audience 251

14. Men shall be employed without regard to their origin, and in seek-
ing for officials recourse shall be had to capital and country alike in order
to widen the avenues for ability.

Official translation of the text of the oath taken by His
Majesty the King of Korea, at the Altar of Heaven,
Seoul, on January 8, 1895.

Though at this date Korea is being reformed under other
than Japanese auspices, it is noteworthy that nearly every step
in advance is on the lines laid down by Japan.

Count Inouye is reported by the Nichi Nichi Shimbun to
have said regarding Korea, ''In my eyes there were only the
Royal Family and the nation." Such a conclusion was legit-
imate in the early part of 1895, and in arriving at it as I did
I am glad to be sheltered by such an unexceptionable au-
thority. . .

Hence it was with real pleasure that I received an invitation
from the Queen to a private audience, to which I was accom-
panied by Mrs. Underwood, an American medical missionary
and the Queen's physician and valued friend. Mr. Hillier
sent me to the Kyeng-pok Palace in an eight-bearer official
chair, escorted by the Korean Legation Guard. I have been
altogether six times at this palace, and always with increased
wonder at its intricacy, and admiration of its quaintness and

beauty.

Entering by a grand three-arched gateway with its stone-
balustraded stone staircase, and stone lions on stone pedestals
below, one is bewildered by the number of large flagged court-
yards, huge audience-halls, pavilions, buildings of all descrip-
tions more or less decorated, stone bridges, narrow passages,
and gateways with double tiered carved roofs through and
among which one passes. A Japanese policeman was at the
grand gate. At each of the interior gates, and there are
many, there were six Korean sentries lounging, who pulled
themselves together as we approached and presented arms !
What with 800 troops, 1,500 attendants and officials of all de-

252 Korea and Her Neighbors

scriptions, courtiers and ministers and their attendants, secre-
taries, messengers, and hangers-on, the vast enclosure of the
Palace seemed as crowded and populated as the city itself.
We had nearly half a mile of buildings to pass through before
we reached a very pretty artificial lake with a decorative island
pavilion in the centre, near which are a foreign palace, built
not long before, and the simple Korean buildings then occu-
pied by the King and Queen, Alighting at the gateway of
the courtyard which led to the Queen's house, we were re-
ceived by the Court interpreter, a number of eunuchs, tw^o of
the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, and her nurse, who was at the
head of the Palace ladies — a very privileged person, middle-
aged, with decidedly fine features.

In a simple room hung with yellow silk we were entertained
in courteous fashion with coffee and cake on arriving, and
afterwards at dinner, the nurse, "supported" by the Court
interpreter, taking the head of the very prettily decorated
table. The dinner was admirably cooked in " foreign style,"
and included soup, fish, quails, wild duck, pheasant, stuffed
and rolled beef, vegetables, creams, glace walnuts, fruit, claret,
and coffee. Several of the Court ladies and others sat at table
with us. After this long delay we were ushered, accompanied
only by the interpreter, into a small audience-room, upon the
dais at one end of which stood the King, the Crown Prince,
and the Queen in front of three crimson velvet chairs, which,
after Mrs. Underwood had presented me, they resumed and
asked us to be seated on two chairs which were provided.

Her Majesty, who was then past forty, was a very nice-
looking slender woman, with glossy raven-black hair and a
very pale skin, the pallor enhanced by the use of pearl pow-
der. The eyes were cold and keen, and the general expression
one of brilliant intelligence. She wore a very handsome, very
full, and very long skirt of mazarine blue brocade, heavily
pleated, with the waist under the arms, and a full sleeved
bodice of crimson and blue brocade, clasped at the throat by

The King's Oath — An Audience 253

a coral rosette, and girdled by six crimson and blue cords,
each one clasped with a coral rosette, with a crimson silk tassel
hanging from it. Her headdress was a crownless black silk
cap edged with fur, pointed over the brow, with a coral rose
and full red tassel in front, and jewelled aigrettes on either
side. Her shoes were of the same brocade as her dress. As
soon as she began to speak, and especially when she became
interested in conversation, her face lighted up into something
very like beauty.

The King is short and sallow, certainly a plain man, wear-
ing a thin moustache and a tuft on the chin. He is nervous
and twitches his hands, but his pose and manner are not
without dignity. His face is pleasing, and his kindliness of
nature is well known. In conversation the Queen prompted
him a good deal. He and the Crown Prince were dressed
alike in white leather shoes, wadded silk socks, and volumin-
ous wadded white trousers. Over these they wore first, white
silk tunics, next pale green ones, and over all sleeveless dresses
of mazarine blue brocade. The whole costume, being exquis-
itively fresh, was pleasing. On their heads they wore hats and
mang-hinis of very fine horsehair gauze, with black silk hoods
bordered with fur, for the mercury stood at 5° below zero.
The Crown Prince is fat and flabby, and though unfortunately
very near-sighted, etiquette forbids him to wear spectacles,
and at that time he produced on every one as on me the im-
pression of being completely an invalid. He was the only
son and the idol of his mother, who lived in ceaseless anxiety
about his health, and in dread lest the son of a concubine
should be declared heir to the throne. To this cause must be
attributed several of her unscrupulous acts, her invoking the
continual aid of sorcerers, and her always increasing benefac-
tions to the Buddhist monks. During much of the audience
mother and son sat with clasped hands.

After the Queen had said many kind things to me person-
ally, showing herself quick-witted as well as courteous, she

254 Korea and Her Neighbors

said something to the King, who immediately took up the con-
versation and continued it for another half-hour. At the close
of the audience I asked leave to photograph the Lake Pavilion,
and the King said, •' Why that alone? come many days and
photograph many things," mentioning several; and he added,
" I should like you to be suitably attended." We then
curtseyed ourselves out, after a very agreeable and interesting
hour, and as it was dusk, the King sent soldiers with us, and a
number of lantern-bearers, with floating drapery of red and
green silk gauze.

Two days later the ''suitable attendance" turned out to be
an unwieldy and embarrassing crowd, consisting of five military
officers, half a regiment of soldiers, and a number of Palace
attendants ! I was greatly impressed by a certain grandeur
and stateliness in the buildings, the vast Hall of Audience
resting on a much elevated terrace ascended by a triple flight
of granite stairs, the noble proportions of the building, the
richly carved ceiling with its manifold reticulations, painted
red, blue, and green, the colossal circular pillars, red with
white bases, and in the dimness of the vast area fronting the
entrance, the shadowy splendor of the Korean throne. Grand,
too, in its simplicity and solidity, is the Summer Palace or
"Hall of Congratulations," on a stone platform approached
by three granite bridges, in a lotus lake of oblong form beauti-
fied conventionally with two stone-faced islands, and by a
broad flagged promenade carried the whole way round it on a
stone-faced embankment. This palace is a noble building.
The upper hall, with its vast sweeping roof, is supported on
forty-eight granite pillars i6 feet in height and 3 feet square
at the base — all monoliths. The situation and the views are
beautiful.

During the next three weeks I had three more audiences, on
the second being accompanied as before by Mrs. Underwood,
the third being a formal reception, and the fourth a strictly
private interview, lasting over an hour. On each occasion I

The King's Oath — An Audience 255

was impressed with the grace and charming manner of the
Queen, her thoughtful kindness, her singular intelligence and
force, and her remarkable conversational power even through
the medium of an interpreter. I was not surprised at her
singular political influence, or her sway over the King and
many others. She was surrounded by enemies, chief among
them being the Tai-Won-Kun, the King's father, all embittered
against her because by her talent and force she had succeeded
in placing members of her family in nearly all the chief offices
of State. Her life was a battle. She fought with all her
charm, shrewdness, and sagacity for power, for the dignity
and safety of her husband and son, and for the downfall of the
Tai-Won-Kun. She had cut short many lives, but in doing so
she had not violated Korean tradition and custom, and some
excuse for her lies in the fact that soon after the King's ac-
cession his father sent to the house of Her Majesty's brother an
infernal machine in the shape of a beautiful box, which on be-
ing opened exploded, killing her mother, brother, and nephew,
as well as some others. Since then he plotted against her
own life, and the feud between them was usually at fever heat.
The dynasty is worn out, and the King, with all his
amiability and kindness of heart, is weak in character and is
at the mercy of designing men, as has appeared increasingly
since the strong sway of the Queen was withdrawn. I believe
him to be at heart, according to his lights, a patriotic sovereign.
Far from standing in the way of reform, he has accepted most
of the suggestions offered to him. But unfortunately for a man
whose edicts become the law of the land, and more unfortu-
nately for the land, he is persuadable by the last person who gets
his ear, he lacks backbone and tenacity of purpose, and many
of the best projects of reform become abortive through his
weakness of will. To substitute constitutional restraints for
absolutism would greatly mend matters, but cela va sans dire
this could only be successful under foreign initiative.

The King was forty-three, the Queen a little older. During

256 Korea and Her Neighbors

his minority, and while he was receiving the usual Chinese
education, his father, the Tai-Won-Kun, who is described by
a Korean writer as having " bowels of iron and a heart of
stone," ruled as Regent with excessive vigor for ten years, and
in 1866 put 2,000 Korean Catholics slaughtered. Able,
rapacious, and unscrupulous, his footsteps have always been
blood-stained. He even put to death one of his own sons.
From the time when his Regency ceased until the murder of
the Queen, Korean political history is mainly the story of the
deadly feud between the Queen and her clan and the Tai-
Won-Kun. I was presented to him at the Palace, and was
much impressed by the vitality and energy of his expression,
his keen glance, and the vigor of his movements, though he is
an old man.

The King's expression is gentle. He has a wonderful mem-
ory, and is said to know Korean history so well that when any
question as to fact or former custom arises he can give full par-
ticulars, with a precise reference to the reign in which any
historic event occurred and to the date. The office of Royal
Reader is not a sinecure, and the Royal Library, which is con-
tained in one of the most beautiful buildings of the Kyeng-pok
Palace, is a very extensive one in Chinese literature. He has
no anti-foreign feeling. His friendliness to foreigners is
marked, and in his manifold perils he has frankly relied upon
their aid. At the time of my second visit, when Japan was in
the ascendant, the King and Queen showed special attention
and kindness to Europeans, and even invited the whole for-
eign community to a skating party on the lake. The King's
attitude towards Christian Missions is very friendly, and toler-
ation is a reality. The American medical attendants of both
the King and Queen, as well as other foreigners, with whom
they were in constant contact, were warmly attached to them,
and I think that the general feeling among Koreans is one of
affectionate loyalty, the blame for oppressive and mistaken
actions being laid on the ministers.

The Kinp^'s Oath — An Audience

'to

257

1 have dwelt so long on the King's personality because he is
de facto the Korean Government, and not a mere figure-head,
as there is no constitution, written or unwritten, no repre-
sentative assembly, and it may be said no law except his pub-
lished Edicts. He is extremely industrious as a ruler, ac-
quaints himself with all the work of departments, receives and
attends to an infinity of reports and memorials, and concerns
himself with all that is done in the name of Government. It
is often said that in close attention to detail he undertakes
more than any one man could perform. At the same time he
has not the capacity for getting a general grip of affairs. He
has so much goodness of heart and so much sympathy with
progressive ideas, that if he had more force of character and
intellect, and were less easily swayed by unworthy men, he
might make a good sovereign, but his weakness of character is
fatal.

The subjects of conversation introduced at three of my audi-
ences not only showed an intelligent desire for such informa-
tion as might be serviceable, but reflected the reforms which
the Japanese were pressing on the King. I was very closely
questioned as to what I had seen of China and Siberia, as to
the Siberian and Japanese railroads, cost of construction per
//, as to the popular feeling in Japan concerning the war, etc.
Again I was catechised as to the avenues to official employ-
ment in England, the possibility of men '*not of the noble
class "' reaching high positions in the Government, the position
of the English nobility with regard to '' privileges," and their
attitude to inferiors. On one day the whole attention of the
King and Queen was concentrated on the relations between
the English Crown and the Cabinet, specially with regard to
the Civil List, on which the King's questions were so numer-
ous and persistent as very nearly to pose me. He was spe-
cially anxious to know if the " Finance Minister" (the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, I suppose) exercised any control over
the personal expenditure of Her Majesty, and if the Queen's

258 Korea and Her Neighbors

personal accounts were paid by herself or through the Treas-
ury. The affairs under the control of each Secretary of State
were the subject of another series of questions.

Many queries were about the duties of the Home Minister,
the position of the Premier, and his relations with the other
Ministers and the Crown. He was very anxious to know if
the Queen could dismiss her Ministers if they failed to carry
out her wishes, and it was impossible to explain to him
through an interpreter, to whom the ideas were unfamiliar,
the constitutional checks on the Englisli Crown, and that the
sovereign only nominally possesses the right of choosing her
Ministers.

Just before I left Korea, I was summoned to a farewell audi-
ence, and asked to take the Legation interpreter with me. I
went in an eight-bearer chair, and was received with the usual
honors, soldiers presenting arms, etc ! There was no crowd
of attendants and no delay. As I was being escorted down a
closed veranda by several eunuchs and military officers, a slid-
ing window was opened by the King, who beckoned to me to
enter, and then closed it. I found myself in the raised alcove
in which the Royal Family usually sat, but the sliding panels
between it and the audience-chamber were closed, and as it is
not more than 6 feet wide, it was impossible to make the cus-
tomary profound curtseys. Instead of the usual throng of at-
tendants, eunuchs, ladies-in-waiting in silk gowns a yard too
long for them, and heavy coils and pillows of artificial hair on
their heads, and privileged persons standing behind the King
and Queen and crowding the many doorways, there were
present only the Queen's nurse and my interpreter, who stood
at a chink between the panels where he could not see the
Queen, bent into an attitude of abject reverence, never lifting
his eyes from the ground or raising his voice above a whisper.
The precautions, however, failed to secure the privacy which
the King and Queen desired. I was certain that through the
chink I saw the shadow of a man in the audience-room, and

The King's Oath — An Audience 259

the interpreter's subsequent remark, '' It was very hard for me
to interpret for His Majesty to-day" was intelligible when I
heard that the ''shadow " belonged to one of the Ministers of
State specially distrusted by the King, and who later had to fly
from Korea. It was understood that this person carried the
substance of what the King and Queen said to a foreign le-
gation.

I cannot here allude to the matter on which the King spoke,
but the audience, which lasted for an hour, was an extremely
interesting one. On one point the King expressed himself
very strongly, as he has done to many others. He considers
that now that Korea is formally independent of China, she is
entitled to a Resident Minister accredited solely to the Korean
Court. He expressed great regard and esteem for Mr. Hillier,
and said that nothing would be more acceptable to him than
his appointment as the first Minister to Korea.

The Queen spoke of Queen Victoria, and said, ''She has
everything that she can wish— greatness, wealth, and power.
Her sons and grandsons are kings and emperors, and her
daughters empresses. Does she ever in her glory think of poor
Korea? She does so much good in the world, her life is a
good. AVe wish her long life and prosperity " ; to which the
King added, "England is our best friend." It was really
touching to hear the occupants of that ancient but shaky
throne speaking in this fashion.

On this occasion the Queen was dressed in a bodice of
brocaded amber satin, a mazarine blue brocaded trained skirt,
a crimson girdle with five clasps and tassels of coral, and a
coral clasp at the throat. Her head was uncovered, and her
abundant black hair gathered into a knot at the back. She
wore no ornament except a pearl and coral jewel on the top of
the head. The King and Queen rose when I took leave, and
the Queen shook hands. They both spoke most kindly, and
expressed the wish that I should return and see more of Korea.
When I did return nine months later, the Queen had been

26o

Korea and Her Neighbors

barbarously murdered, and the King was practically a prisoner
in his own palace.

Travellers received by the Korean King have often ridiculed
the audience, the surroundings, and the Palace. I must say
that I saw nothing to ridicule, unless national customs and eti-
quette varying from our own are necessarily ridiculous. On
the contrary, there were a simplicity, dignity, kindliness,
courtesy, and propriety which have left a very agreeable im-
pression on me, and my four audiences at Palace were the
great feature of my second visit to Korea.

KOREAN GENTLEMAN IN COURT DRESS.

CHAPTER XXII

A TRANSITION STAGE

DURING January, 1895, Seoul was in a curious condition.
The "old order" was changing, but the new had not
taken its place. The Japanese, victorious by land and sea,
were in a position to enforce the reforms in which before the
war they had asked China to cooperate. The King, since
the capture of the Palace by the Japanese in July, 1 894, had
become little more than a "salaried automaton," and the
once powerful members of the Min clan had been expelled
from their offices. The Japanese were prepared to accept the
responsibility of the supervision of all departments, and to
enforce honesty on a corrupt executive. The victory over
the Chinese at Phyong-yang on 17th September, 1894, had set
them free to carry out their purposes. Count Inouye, one
of the foremost of the statesmen who created the new Japan,
arrived as "Resident" on October 20, 1894, and practically
administered the Government in the King's name. There
were Japanese controllers in all the departments, the army
was drilled by Japanese drill instructors, a police force was
organized and clothed in badly fitting Japanese uniforms, a
Council of Koreans was appointed to draft a scheme of re-
form, and form the nucleus of a possible Korean Parliament,
and Count Inouye as Japanese adviser had the right of con-
tinual access to the King, and with an interpreter and sten-
ographer sat at the meetings of the Cabinet. Every day
Japanese ascendency was apparent in new appointments,
regulations, abolitions, and reforms. The Japanese claimed
that their purpose was to reform the administration of Korea

261

262 Korea and Her Neighbors

as we had done that of Egypt, and I believe they would have
done it had they been allowed a free hand. It was apparent,
however, that Count Inouye found the task of reformation a
far harder one than he expected, and that the difficulties in
his way were nearly insurmountable. He said himself that
there were *' no tools to work with," and in the hope of manu-
facturing them a large number of youths of the upper class
were sent for two years to Japan, one year to be spent in
education and another in learning accuracy and ''the first
principles of honor" in certain Government departments.

Sundry Japanese demands, though conceded at the time by
the King, had been allowed to drop, and it was not till De-
cember, 1894, that Count Inouye obtained a formal covenant
that five of them should be at once carried out. (i) A full
pardon for all the conspirators of 1884 ; (2) That the Tai-
VVon-Kun and the Queen should interfere no more in public
affairs; (3) That no relatives of the Royal Family should be
employed in any official capacity ; (4) That the number of
eunuchs and "Palace ladies" should at once be reduced to a
minimum; (5) That caste distinctions — patrician and plebeian
— should no longer be recognized.

Edicts on some of the foregoing subjects appeared in the
Gazette, and large numbers of the eunuchs packed up their
clothes and left the Palace quietly in the night, along with the
"Palace ladies"; but the King in his vast dwelling was so
lonely without them that the next morning he sent an order
commanding their immediate return under serious penalties,
and it was obeyed at once !

The attitude of the Korean official class, with the exception
of a small number who were personally interested in the suc-
cess of Japan, was altogether unfavorable to the new regime,
and every change was regarded with indignation. Though
destitute of true patriotism, the common people looked upon
the King as a sacred person, and they were furious at the in-
dignities to which he had been subjected. The official class

A Transition Stage 263

saw that reform meant the end of " squeezing" and ill-gotten
gains, and 'they, with the whole army of parasites and hang-
ers-on of yame?is, were all pledged by the strongest personal
interest to oppose it by active opposition or passive resistance.
Though corruption has its stronghold in Seoul, every provincial
government repeats on a smaller scale the iniquities of the
capital, and has its own army of dishonest and lazy officials
fattening on the earnings of the industrious classes.

The cleansing of the Augean stable of the Korean official
system, which the Japanese had undertaken, was indeed an
Herculean labor. Traditions of honor and honesty, if they
ever existed, had been forgotten for centuries. Standards of
official rectitude were unknown. In Korea when the Japanese
undertook the work of reform there were but two classes, the
robbers and the robbed, and the robbers included the vast
army which constituted officialdom. " Squeezing " and pecu-
lation were the rule from the highest to the lowest, and every
position was bought and sold.

The transition stage, down to 12th February, 1895, when
I left Korea, was a remarkable one. The Official Gazette
curiously reflected that singular period. One day a decree
abolished the 3 feet long tobacco pipes which were the delight
of the Koreans of the capital ; another, there was an enlight-
ened statute ordering the planting of pines to remedy the den-
udation of the hills around Seoul, the same Gazette directing
that duly appointed geomancers should find ''an auspicious
day " on which the King might worship at the ancestral tab-
lets ! One day barbarous and brutalizing punishments were
wisely abolished ; another, there appeared a string, of vexatious
and petty regulations calculated to harass the Chinese out of
the kingdom, and appointing as a punishment for the breach
of them a fine of 100 dollars or 100 blows !

Failure in tact was one great fault of the Japanese. The
seizure of the Palace and the King's person in July, 1894, even
if a dubious political necessity, did not excuse the indignities

264 Korea and Her Neighbors

to which the sovereign was exposed. The forcing of former
conspirators into high office was a grave error, and tactless
proceedings, such as the abolition of long pipes, alterations in
Court and other dress, many interferences with social customs,
and petty and harassing restrictions and regulations, embit-
tered the people against the new regime.

The Tong-haks, who had respectfully thrown off allegiance
to the King on the ground that he was in the hands of for-
eigners, and had appointed another sovereign, had been van-
quished early in January, and their king's head had been sent
to Seoul by a loyal governor. There I saw it in the busiest
part of the Peking Road, a bustling market outside the *' little
West Gate," hanging from a rude arrangement of three sticks
like a camp-kettle stand, with another head below it. Both
faces wore a calm, almost dignified, expression. Not far off
two more heads had been exposed in a similar frame, but it
had given way, and they lay in the dust of the roadway, much
gnawed by dogs at the back. The last agony was stiffened on
their features. A turnip lay beside them, and some small chil-
dren cut pieces from it and presented them mockingly to the
blackened mouths. This brutalizing spectacle had existed for
a week.

Three days later, in the stillness of the Korean New Year's
Day, I rode with a friend along a lonely road passing through
a fair agricultural valley among pine-clothed knolls outside the
South and East Gates of Seoul. Snow lay on the ground and
the grim sky threatened a further storm. It was cold, and we
observed with surprise three coolies in summer cotton clothing
lying by the roadside asleep; but it was the last sleep, for on
approaching them we found that, though their attitudes were
those of easy repose, the bodies were without heads, nor had
the headsman's axe been merciful or sharp. In the middle of
the road were great, frozen, crimson splashes where the Tong-
hak leaders had expiated their treason, criminals in Korea, as
in old Jerusalem, suffering "without the gate."

A Transition Stage 265

A few days later an order appeared in the Gazette abolish-
ing beheading and ''slicing to death," and substituting death
by strangulation for civil, and by sliooting for military capital
crimes. This order practically made an end of the prerogative
of life and death heretofore possessed by the Korean sovereigns.

So the '' old order " was daily changing under the pressure
of the Japanese advisers, and on the whole changing most de-
cidedly for the better, though, owing to the number of reforms
decreed and in contemplation, everything was in a tentative
and chaotic state. Korea was " swithering " between China
and Japan, afraid to go in heartily for the reforms initiated by
Japan lest China should regain position and be ''down" upon
her, and afraid to oppose them actively lest Japan should be
permanently successful.

On that same New Year's Day there was more to be seen
than headless trunks. Through the length of Seoul, towards
twilight, an odor of burning hair overpowered the aromatic
scent of the pine brush, and all down every street, outside
every door, there were red glimmers of light. It is the custom
in every family on that day to carry out the carefully preserved
clippings and combings of the family hair and burn them in
potsherds, a practice which it is hoped will prevent the entrance
of certain daemons into the house during the year. Rude straw
dolls stuffed with a few cash were also thrown into the street.
This effigy is believed to take away troubles and foist them on
whoever picks it up. To prevent such a vicarious calamity,
more than one mother on that evening pounced upon a child
who childlike had picked up the doll and threw it far from
him.

On that night round pieces of red or white paper placed in
cleft sticks are put upon the roofs of houses, and those persons
who have been warned by the sorcerers of troubles to cdtne,
pray (?) to the moon to remove them.

A common Korean custom on the same day is for people to
paint images on paper, and to write against them their troubles

266 Korea and Her Neighbors

of body or mind, afterwards giving the paper to a boy who
burns it.

A more singular New Year custom in Seoul is ''Walking the
Bridges." Up to midnight, men, women, and children cross
a bridge or bridges as many times as they are years old. This
is believed to prevent pains in the feet and legs during the year.

This day, the "Great Fifteenth Day," concludes the kite-
flying and stone fights which enliven Seoul for the previous
fortnight, and every Korean insists on keeping it as a holiday.
Graves are formally visited, and gathered families spread food
before the ancestral tablets. Curious customs prevail at this
time. A few days before, the Palace eunuchs chant invoca-
tions, swinging burning torches as they do so. This is sup-
posed to ensure bountiful crops for the next season. People
buy quantities of nuts, which they crack, hold the kernels in
the mouth, and then throw them away. This is to prevent
summer sores and boils. Also on the Great Fifteenth Day men
try to find out the probable rainfall for each month by split-
ting a small piece of bamboo, and laying twelve beans side by
side in one of the halves, after which it is closed, and after
being bound tightly with cord, is lowered into a well for the
night. Each bean represents a month. In the morning, when
they are examined in rotation, they are variously enlarged, and
the enlargement indicates the proportion of rain in that special
moon. If, on the contrary, one or more are wizened, it causes
great alarm, as indicating complete or partial drought in one
or more months. Dogs do not get their usual meal on the
morning of the " Great Fifteenth," in the belief that the dep-
rivation will keep them from being pestered with flies during
the long summer.

If a boy has been born during the year, poles bearing paper
fish by day and lanterns by night project from the house of the
parents. The people at night watch the burning of candles.
If they are entirely burned, the life of the child will be long;
if only partially burned, it will be proportionately shorter.

A Transition Stage 267

I left Seoul very regretfully on 5th February. The Japanese
had introduced ji'nn'^s has, but the runners were unskilled, and
I met with so severe an accident in going down to Chemulpo
that I did not recover for a year. The line of steamers to
Japan was totally disorganized by the war, and in the week
that I waited for the /ifi^o Mane war was uppermost in peo-
ple's thoughts. There were some who even then could not
bring themselves to believe in the eventual success of the Japa-
nese. The fall of Wei-hai-wei and the capture of the Chinese
fleet opened many eyes. I was in the office of the '* N.Y.K."
when the news came, and the clerks were too wild with excite-
ment to attend to me, apologizing by saying, "It's another
victory ! " Chemulpo was decorated, illuminated, and pro-
cessioned for victories, Li Hung Chang was burned in effigy,
and unlimited sake for all comers was supplied from tubs at
the street corners.

There were indications of the cost of victory, however.
The great military hospitals were full, the cemetery was filling
fast, military funerals with military pomp and Shinto priests
passed down the bannered street, and 600 transport coolies
tramping from Manchuria arrived in rags and tatters, some
clothed in raw hides and raw skins of sheep, their feet, hands,
and lips frost-bitten, and with blackened stumps of fingers and
toes protruding from filthy bandages. The Japanese schools
teach that Japan has a right to demand all that a man has, and
that life itself is not too costly a sacrifice for him to lay on the
altar of his country. Undoubtedly the teaching bears fruit.
Not long before at Osaka I saw the wharves piled high with
voluntary contributions for the troops, and the Third Army
leave the city amidst an outburst of popular enthusiasm such
as I never saw equalled. Most of these coolies, when they re-
ceived new clothing, volunteered for further service, and dying
soldiers on battlefields and in hospitals uttered '' Dai Nippon
Banzai!''' (Great Japan forever!) v/ith their last faltering
breath.

268

Korea and Her Neighbors

When I left Korea the condition of things may be sum-
marized thus. Japan was thoroughly in earnest as to reform-
ing the Korean administration through Koreans, and very
many reforms were decreed or in contemplation, while some
evils and abuses were already swept away. The King, de-
prived of his absolute sovereignty, was practically a salaried
registrar of decrees. Count Inouye occupied the position of
"Resident," and the Government was administered in the
King's name by a Cabinet consisting of the heads of ten de-
partments, in some measure the nominees of the ''Resident." ^

1 1 repeat this statement in this form for the benefit of the reader, and
ask him to compare it with a summary of Korean affairs early in 1897,
given in the 36th chapter of this volume.

PLACE OF THE QUEEN'S CREMATION.

I

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ASSASSINATION OF THE QUEEN

N May, 1895, a treaty of peace between China and Japan
_ was signed at Shimonoseki, a heavy indemnity, the island
of Formosa, and a great accession of prestige, being the gains
of Japan. From thenceforward no power having interests in
the Far East could afford to regard her as a quantite neglige-
able.

After travelling for some months in South and Mid China,
and spending the summer in Japan, I arrived in Nagasaki in
October, 1895, to hear a rumor of the assassination of the
Korean Queen, afterwards confirmed on board the Suruga
Maru by Mr. Sill, the American Minister, who was hurrying
back to his post in Seoul in consequence of the disturbed state
of affairs. I went up immediately from Chemulpo to the
capital, where I was Mr. Hillier's guest at the English Lega-
tion for two exciting months.

The native and foreign communities were naturally much
excited by the tragedy at the Palace, and the treatment which
the King was receiving. Count Inouye, whose presence in
Seoul always produced confidence, had left a month before,
and had been succeeded by General Viscount Miura, a capable
soldier, without diplomatic experience.

In an interview which Count Inouye had with the Queen
shortly before his departure, speaking of the ascendency of
the Tai-Won-Kun, after the capture of the Palace by Mr.
Otori in the previous July, Her Majesty said, " It is a matter
of regret to me that the overtures made by me towards Japan
were rejected. The Tai-Won-Kun, on the other hand, who

269

270 Korea and Her Neighbors

showed his unfriendliness towards Japan, was assisted by the
Japanese Minister to rise in power."

In the despatch in which Count Inouye reported this inter-
view to his Government he wrote : —

I gave as far as I could an explanation of these things to the Queen,
and after so allaying her suspicions, 1 further explained that it was the
true and sincere desire of the Emperor and Government of Japan to place
the independence of Korea on a firm basis, and in the meantime to
strengthen the Royal House of Korea. /;/ the event of any member of
the Royal Family, or indeed any Korean, therefore attempting treasoti
against the Royal House, I gave the assurance that the Japanese Govern-
7?ient would not fail to protect the Royal House even by force of arms,
and so secure the safety of the kingdom. These remarks of mine seemed
to have moved the King and Queen, and their anxiety for the future ap-
peared to be much relieved.

The Korean sovereigns would naturally think themselves
justified in relying on the promise so frankly given by one of
the most distinguished of Japanese statesmen, whom they had
learned to regard with confidence and respect, and it is clear
to myself that when the fateful night came, a month later,
their reliance on this assurance led them to omit certain possi-
ble precautions, and caused the Queen to neglect to make her
escape at the first hint of danger.

When the well-known arrangement between Viscount Miura
and the Tai-Won-Kun was ripe for execution, the Japanese
Minister directed the Commandant of the Japanese battalion
quartered in the barracks just outside the Palace gate to facili-
tate the Tai-Won-Kun's entry into the Palace by arranging
the disposition of the Kim-ren-tai (Korean troops drilled by
Japanese), and by calling out the Imperial force to support
them. Miura also called upon two Japanese to collect their
friends, go to Riong San on the Han, where the intriguing
Prince was then living, and act as his bodyguard on his jour-
ney to the Palace. The Minister told them that on the suc-
cess of the enterprise depended the eradication of the evils

The Assassination of the Queen 271

which had afflicted the kingdom for twenty years, and insti-
gated THEM TO DISPATCH THE QuEEN WHEN THEY ENTERED

THE Palace. One of Miura's agents then ordered the Japa-
nese policemen who were off duty to put on civilian dress,
provide themselves with swords, and accompany the conspira-
tors to the Tai-Won-Kun's house.

At 3 A.M. on the morning of the 8th of October they left
Riong San, escorting the Prince's palanquin, Mr. Okamoto, to
whom much had been entrusted, assembling the whole party
when on the point of departure, and declaring to them that
on entering the Palace the "Fox" should be dealt with ac-
cording *' as exigency might require." Then this procession,
including ten Japanese who had dressed themselves in uni-
forms taken from ten captured Korean police, started for
Seoul, more than three miles distant. Outside the ''Gate of
Staunch Loyalty" they were met by the Kun-ren-tai, and
then waited for the arrival of the Japanese troops, after which
they proceeded at a rapid pace to the Palace, entering it by
the front gate, and after killing some of the Palace Guard,
proceeded a quarter of a mile to the buildings occupied by the
King and Queen, which have a narrow courtyard in front.

So far I have followed the Hiroshima judgment in its state-
ment of the facts of that morning, but when it has conducted
the combined force to ''the inner chambers" it concludes
abruptly with a " not proven " in the case of all the accused !
For the rest of the story, so far as it may interest my readers,
I follow the statements of General Dye and Mr. Sabatin of the
King's Guard, and of certain official documents.

It is necessary here to go back upon various events which
preceded the murder of Her Majesty. Trouble arose in Oc-
tober between the Ktm-ren-tai and the Seoul police, resulting
in the total defeat of the latter. The Kim-ren-tai, numbering
1,000, were commanded by Colonel Hong, who in 1882 had
rescued the Queen from imminent danger, and was trusted by
the Royal Family. The Palace was in the hands of the Old

272 Korea and Her Neighbors

Guard under Colonel Hyon, who bad saved Her Majesty's life
in 1884. In the first week of October the strength of this
Guard was greatly reduced, useful weapons were quietly with-
drawn, and the ammunition was removed.

On the night of the 7th the Kiui-7'en-tai, with their Japa-
nese instructors, marched and countermarched till they were
found on all sides of the Palace, causing some uneasiness
within. The alarm was given to General Dye and Mr. Saba-
tin early on the morning of the 8th. ^ These officers, looking
through a chink of the gate, saw a number of Japanese sol-
diers with fixed bayonets standing there, who, on being asked
what they were doing, filed right and left out of the moonlight
under the shadow of the wall. Skulking under another part
of the wall were over 200 of the Kun-ren-tai. The two for-
eigners were consulting as to the steps to be taken when heavy
sounds of battering came from the grand entrance gate, fol-
lowed by firing.

General Dye attempted to rally the Guard, but after five or
six volleys from the assailants they broke with such a rush as
to sweep the two foreigners past the King's house to the gate-
way of the Queen's, No clear account has ever been given of
the events which followed. Colonel Hong, the commander of
the Kun-ren-tai, was cut down by a Japanese officer at the
great gate, and was afterwards mortally wounded by eight bul-
lets. The Kun-7'en-tai swarmed into the Palace from all
directions, along with Japanese civilians armed with swords,
who frantically demanded the whereabouts of the Queen,
hauling the Palace ladies about by the hair to compel them to
point out Her Majesty, rushing in and out of windows, throw-
ing the ladies-in-waiting from the 7 feet high veranda into
the compound, cutting and kicking them, and brutally mur-
dering four in the hope that they had thus secured their victim.

'General Dye, late of the U. S. army, was instructor of the Old Guard.
Mr. Sabatin, a Russian subject, was temporarily employed as a watchman
to see that the sentries were at their posts.

The Assassination of the Queen 273

Japanese troops also entered the Palace, and formed in mili-
tary order under the command of their officers round the small
courtyard of the King's house and at its gate, protecting the
assassins in their murderous work. Before this force of Japa-
nese regulars arrived there was a flying rout of servants, run-
ners, and Palace Guards rushing from every point of the vast
enclosure in mad haste to get out of the gates. As the Japa-
nese entered the building, the unfortunate King, hoping to
divert their attention and give the Queen time to escape, came
into a front room where he could be distinctly seen. Some of
the Japanese assassins rushed in brandishing their swords,
pulled His Majesty about, and beat and dragged about some
of the Palace ladies by the hair in his presence. The Crown
Prince, who was in an inner room, was seized, his hat torn off
and broken, and he was pulled about by the hair and threat-
ened with swords to make him show the way to the Queen,
but he managed to reach the King, and they have never been
separated since.

The whole affair did not occupy much more than an hour.
The Crown Prince saw his mother rush down a passage fol-
lowed by a Japanese with a sword, and there was a general
rush of assassins for her sleeping apartments. In the upper
story the Crown Princess was found with several ladies, and
she was dragged by the hair, cut with a sword, beaten, and
thrown downstairs. Yi Kyong-jik, Minister of the Royal
Household, seems to have given the alarm, for the Queen was
dressed and was preparing to run and hide herself. When the
murderers rushed in, he stood with outstretched arms in front
of Her Majesty, trying to protect her, furnishing them with the
clue they wanted. They slashed off both his hands and in-
flicted other wounds, but he contrived to drag himself along
the veranda into the King's presence, where he bled to death.

The Queen, flying from the assassins, was overtaken and
stabbed, falling down as if dead, but one account says that,
recovering a little, she asked if the Crown Prince, her idol,

274 Korea and Her Neighbors

was safe, on which a Japanese jumped on her breast and
stabbed her through and through with his sword. Even then,
though the nurse whom I formerly saw in attendance on her
covered her face, it is not certain that she was dead, but the
Japanese laid her on a plank, wrapped a silk quilt round her,
and she was carried to a grove of pines in the adjacent deer
park, where kerosene oil was poured over the body, which was
surrounded by faggots and burned, only a few small bones
escaping destruction.

Thus perished, at the age of forty-four, by the hands of for-
eign assassins, instigated to their bloody work by the Minister
of a friendly power, the clever, ambitious, intriguing, fascinat-
ing, and in many respects lovable Queen of Korea. In her
lifetime Count Inouye, whose verdict for many reasons may be
accepted, said, "Her Majesty has few equals among her
countrymen for shrewdness and sagacity. In the art of con-
ciliating her enemies and winning the confidence of her
servants she has no equals."

A short time after daylight the Tai-Won-Kun issued
two proclamations, of which the following sentences are
specimens : —

1st, " The hearts of the people dissolve through the presence in the
Palace of a crowd of base fellows. So the National Grand Duke is re-
turned to power to inaugurate changes, expel the base fellows, restore
former laws, and vindicate the dignity of His Majesty."

2nd, "I have now entered the Palace to aid His Majesty, expel the
low fellows, perfect that which will be a benefit, save the country, and in-
troduce peace."

The Palace gates were guarded by the mutinous Kun-ren-tai
with fixed bayonets, who allowed a constant stream of Koreans
to pass out, the remnants of the Old Palace Guard, who had
thrown off their uniforms and hidden their arms, each man
being seized and searched before his exit was permitted. Near
the gate was a crimson pool marking the spot where Colonel
Hong fell. Three of the Ministers were at once dismissed

The Assassination of the Queen 275

from their posts, some escaped, and many of the high officials
sought safety in flight. Nearly every one who was trusted by
the King was removed, and several of the chief offices of State
were filled by the nominees of the officers of the Ktin-re?i-tai,
who, later, when they did not find the Cabinet, which was
chiefly of their own creation, sufficiently subservient, used to
threaten it with drawn swords.

Viscount Miura arrived at the Palace at daylight, with Mr.
Sugimura, Secretary of the Japanese Legation (who had
arranged the details of the plot), and a certain Japanese who
had been seen by the King apparently leading the assassins,
and actively participating in the bloody work, and had an
audience of His Majesty, who was profoundly agitated. He
signed three documents at their bidding, after which the
Japanese troops were withdrawn from the Palace, and the
armed forces, and even the King's personal attendants, were
placed under the orders of those who had been concerned in
attack. The Tai-Won-Kun was present at this audience.

During the day all the Foreign Representatives had audi-
ences of the King, who was much agitated, sobbed at intervals,
and, believing the Queen to have escaped, was very solicitous
about his own safety, as he was environed by assassins, the
most unscrupulous of all being his own father. In violation
of custom, he grasped the hands of the Representatives, and
asked them to use their friendly offices to prevent further out-
rage and violence. He was anxious that the Kun-ren-tai
should be replaced by Japanese troops. On the same after-
noon the Foreign Representatives met at the Japanese Le-
gation to hear Viscount Miura's explanation of circumstances
in which his countrymen were so seriously implicated.

Three days after the events in the Palace, and while the
King and the general public believed the Queen to be alive, a
so-called Royal Edict, a more infamous outrage on the Queen
even than her brutal assassination, was published in the Official
Gazette. The King on being asked to sign it refused, and

2/6 Korea and Her Neighbors

said he would have his hands cut off rather, but it appeared as
his decree, and bore the signatures of the Minister of the
Household, the Prime Minister, and six other members of the
Cabinet.

ROYAL EDICT.

It is now thirty-two years since We ascended the throne, but Our ruling
influence has not extended wide. The Queen Min introduced her rela-
tives to the Court and placed them about Our person, whereby she made
dull Our senses, exposed the people to extortion, put Our Government in
disorder, selling offices and titles. Hence tyranny prevailed all over the
country and robbers arose in all quarters. Under these circumstances the
foundation of Our dynasty was in imminent peril. We knew the extreme
of her wickedness, but could not dismiss and punish her because of help-
lessness and fear of her party.

We desire to stop and suppress her influence. In the twelfth moon of
last year we took an oath at Our Ancestral Shrine that the Queen and her
relatives and Ours should never again be allowed to interfere in State af-
fairs. We hoped this would lead the Min faction to mend their ways.
But the Queen did not give up her Muckedness, but with her party aided
a crowd of low fellows to rise up about Us and so managed as to pre-
vent the Ministers of State from consulting Us. Moreover, they have
forged Our signature to a decree to disband Our loyal soldiers, thereby
instigating and raising a disturbance, and when it occurred she escaped
as in the Im O year. We have endeavored to discover her whereabouts,
but as she does not come forth and appear We are convinced that she is
not only unfitted and unworthy of the Queen's rank, but also that her
guilt is excessive and brimful. Therefore with her We may not succeed
to the glory of the Royal Ancestry. So We hereby depose her from the
rank of Queen and reduce her to the level of the lowest class.
Signed by

Yi Chai-myon, Minister of the Royal Household.

Kim Hong-chip, Prime Minister.

Kim Yun-sik, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Pak Chong-yang, Minister of Home Affairs.

Shim Sang-hun, Minister of Finance.

Cho Heui-yon, Minister of War.

So Kwang-pom, Minister of Justice.

So KwANG-POM, Minister of Education.

Chong Pyong-ha, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and
Commerce.

The Assassination of the Queen 27^

On the day following the issue of this fraudulent and
infamous edict, another appeared in which Her Majesty, out
of pity for the Crown Prince and as a reward for his deep de-
votion to his father, was '' raised " by the King to the rank of
*' Concubine of the First Order " !

The diplomats were harassed and anxious, and met con-
stantly to discuss the situation. Of course the state of ex-
treme tension was not caused solely by " happenings " in
Korea and their local consequences. For behind this well-
executed plot, and the diabolical murder of a defenceless
woman, lay a terrible suspicion, which gained in strength
every hour during the first few days after the tragedy till it in-
tensified into a certainty, of which people spoke as in cipher,
by hints alone, that other brains than Korean planned the
plot, that other than Korean hands took the lives that were
taken, that the sentries who guarded the King's apartments
while the deed of blood was being perpetrated wore other than
Korean uniforms, and that other than Korean bayonets gleamed
in the shadow of the Palace wall.

People spoke their suspicions cautiously, though the evidence
of General Dye and of Mr. Sabatin pointed unmistakably in
one direction. So early as the day after the affair, the ques-
tion which emerged was, ''Is Viscount General Miura crim-
inally implicated or not?" It is needless to go into partic-
ulars on this subject. Ten days after the tragedy at the Palace,
the Japanese Government, which was soon proved innocent of
any complicity in the affair, recalled and arrested Viscount
Miura, Sugimura, and Okamoto, Adviser to the Korean War De-
partment, who, some months later, along with forty-five others,
were placed on their trial before the Japanese Court of First
Instance at Hiroshima, and were acquitted on the technical
ground that there was "no sufficient evidence to prove that
any of the accused actually committed the crime originally
meditated by them," this crime, according to the judgment,
being that two of the accused, ''at the instigation of

278 Korea and Her Neighbors

MlURA, DECIDED TO MURDER THE QuEEN, and tOok StCpS by

collecting accomplices . . . more than ten others were di-
rected by these two persons to do away with the Queen."

Viscount Miura was replaced by Mr. Komura, an able di-
plomatist, and shortly afterwards Count Inouye arrived, bearing
the condolences of the Emperor of Japan to the unfortunate
Korean King. A heavier blow to Japanese prestige and po-
sition as the leader of civilization in the East could not have
been struck, and the Government continues to deserve our
sympathy on the occasion. For when the disavowal is for-
gotten, it will be always remembered that the murderous plot
was arranged in the Japanese Legation, and that of the Japa-
nese dressed as civilians and armed with swords and pistols,
who were directly engaged in the outrages committed in the
Palace, some were advisers to the Korean Government and in
its pay, and others were Japanese policemen connected with
the Japanese Legation — sixty persons in all, including those
known as Soshi, and exclusive of the Japanese troops.

The Foreign Representatives with one exception informed
the Cabinet that until steps were taken to bring the assassins
to justice, till the Kiin-ren-tai Guard was removed from the
Palace, and till the recently introduced members of the
Cabinet who were responsible for the outrages had been ar-
raigned or at least removed from office, they declined to recog-
nize any act of the Government, or to accept as authentic any
order issued by it in the King's name. The prudence of this
course became apparent later.

On 15th October, in an extra issue of the Official Gazette y
it was announced "By Royal Command" that, as the po-
sition of Queen must not remain vacant for a day, proceed-
ings for the choice of a bride were to begin at once ! This
was only one among the many insults which were heaped upon
the Royal prisoner.

During the remainder of October and November there was
no improvement in affairs. The gloom was profound. In-

The Assassination of the Queen 279

stead of Royal receptions and entertainments, the King,
shaken by terror and in hourly dread of poison or assassina-
tion, was a close prisoner in a poor part of his own palace, in
the hands of a Cabinet chiefly composed of men who were
the tools of the mutinous soldiers who were practically his
jailers, compelled to put his seal to edicts which he loathed,
the tool of men on whose hands the blood of his murdered
Queen was hardly dry. Nothing could be more pitiable than
the condition of the King and Crown Prince, each dreading
that the other would be slain before his eyes, not daring to eat
of any food prepared in the Palace, dreading to be separated,
even for a few minutes, without an adherent whom they could
trust, and with recent memories of infinite horror as food for
contemplation.

General Dye, the American military adviser, an old and
feeble man, slept near the Palace Library, and the American
missionaries in twos took it in turns to watch with him. This
was the only protection which the unfortunate sovereign pos-
sessed. He was also visited daily by the Foreign Representa-
tives in turns, with the double object of ascertaining that he
was alive and assuring him of their sympathy and interest.
Food was supplied to him in a locked box from the Russian
or U. S. Legations, but so closely was he watched, that it was
difficult to pass the key into his hand, and a hasty and very
occasional whisper was the only communication he could suc-
ceed in making to these foreigners, who were his sole reliance.
Undoubtedly from the first he hoped to escape either to the
English or Russian Legation. At times he sobbed piteously
and shook the hands of the foreigners, who made no attempt
to conceal the sympathy they felt for the always courteous
and kindly sovereign.

Entertainments among the foreigners ceased. The dismay
was too profound and the mourning too real to permit even of
the mild gaieties of a Seoul winter. Every foreign lady, and
specially Mrs. Underwood, Her Majesty's medical attendant,

28o Korea and Her Neighbors

and Mme. Waeber, who had been an intimate friend, felt her
death as a personal loss. Her Oriental unscrupulousness in
politics was forgotten in the horror excited by the story of her
end. Yet then and for some time afterwards people clung to
the hope that she had escaped as on a former occasion, and
was in hiding. Among Koreans opinion was greatly con-
cealed, for there were innumerable arrests, and no one knew
when his turn might come, but it was believed that there was
an earnest desire to liberate the King. A number of foreign
warships lay at Chemulpo, and the British, Russian, and
American Legations were guarded by marines.

Nearly a month after the assassination of the Queen, and
when all hope of her escape had been abandoned, the condi-
tion of things was so serious under the rule of the new Cabinet,
that an attempt was made by the Foreign Representatives to
terminate it by urging on Count Inouye to disarm the Kun-
ren-tai, and occupy the Palace with Japanese troops until the
loyal soldiers had been drilled into an efficiency on which the
King might rely for his personal safety. It will be seen from
this proposal how completely the Japanese Government was
exonerated from blame by the diplomatic agents of the Great
Powers. This proposal was not received with cordial alacrity
by Count Inouye, who felt that the step of an armed reoccu-
pation of the Palace by the Japanese, though with the object
of securing the King's safety, would be liable to serious mis-
construction, and might bring about very grave complications.
Such an idea was only to be entertained if Japan received a
distinct mandate from the Powers. The telegraph was set to
work, a due amount of consent to the arrangement was ob-
tained, and when I left Seoul on a northern journey on No-
vember 7th, it was in the full belief that on reaching Phyong-
yang I should find a telegram announcing that this serious
coup d'etat had been successfully accomplished in the presence
of the Foreign Representatives. Japan, however, did not un-
dertake the task, though urged to do so both by Count Inouye

The Assassination of the Queen 281

and Mr. Komura, the new Representative, and the Knn-ren-
tai remained in power, and the King a prisoner. Had the
recommendation of the Foreign Representatives, among whom
the Russian Representatives was the most emphatic in urging
the interference of Japan, been adopted, it is more than prob-
able that the present predominance of Russian influence in
Korea would have been avoided. It is only fair to the Russian
Government to state that it gave a distinct mandate to the
Japanese to disarm the Kim-ren-tai and take charge of the
King. The Japanese Government declined, and therefore is
alone responsible for Russia's subsequent intervention.

During November the dissatisfaction throughout Korea with
the measures which were taken and proposed increased, and
the position became so strained, owing to the demand of the
Foreign Representatives and of all classes of Koreans that the
occurrences of the 8th of October must be investigated, and
that the fiction of the Queen being in hiding should be aban-
doned, that the Cabinet unwillingly recognized that something
must be done. So on 26th November the Foreign Representa-
tives were invited by the King to the Palace, and the Prime
Minister, in presence of His Majesty, who was profoundly
agitated, produced a decree bearing the King's signature, dis-
missing the special nominees of the mutineers, the Ministers
of War and Police, declaring that the so-called Edict degrad-
ing the Queen was set aside and treated as void from the be-
ginning, and that she was reinstated in her former honors;
that the occurrences of the 8th October were to be investigated
by the Department of Justice, and that the guilty persons were
to be tried and punished. The death of Her Majesty was an-
nounced at the same time.

At the conclusion of this audience, Mr. Sill, the United
States Minister, expressed to the King " his profound satisfac-
with the announcement." Mr. Hillier followed by "con-
gratulating His Majesty on these satisfactory steps, and hoped
it would be the beginning of a time of peace and tranquillity,

282 Korea and Her Neighbors

and relieve His Majesty from much anxiety." These good
wishes were cordially endorsed by his colleagues.

The measures proposed by the King to reassert his lost
authority and punish the conspirators promised very well, but
were rendered abortive by a 'Moyal plot," which was formed
by the Old Palace Guard and a number of Koreans, some of
them by no means insignificant men. It had for its object
the liberation of the sovereign and the substitution of loyal
troops for the Kun-ren-tai. Though it ended in a fiasco two
nights after this hopeful interview, its execution having been
frustrated by premature disclosures, its results were disastrous,
for it involved a number of prominent men, created grave sus-
picions, raised up a feeling of antagonism to foreigners, some
of whom (American missionaries) were believed to be cogni-
zant of the plot, if not actually accessories, and brought about
a general confusion, from which, when I left Korea five weeks
later, there was no prospect of escape. The King was a closer
prisoner than ever; those surrounding him grew familiar and
insolent; he lived in dread of assassination; and he had no
more intercourse with foreigners, except with those who had an
official right to enter the Palace, which they became increas-
ingly unwilling to exercise.

It was with much regret that I left Seoul for a journey in the
interior at this most exciting time, when every day brought
fresh events and rumors, and a coup d^ etat of great im-
portance was believed to be impending; but I had very little
time at my disposal before proceeding to Western China on a
long-planned journey.

CHAPTER XXIV

BURIAL CUSTOMS

AFTER the interpreter difficulty had appeared as before
insurmountable, I was provided with one who acquitted
himself to perfection, and through whose good offices I came
much nearer to the people than if I had been accompanied by
a foreigner. He spoke English remarkably well, was always
bright, courteous, intelligent, and good-natured ; he had a
keen sense of the ludicrous, and I owe much of the pleasure,
as well as the interest, of my journey to his companionship.
Mr. Hillier equipped me with Im, a soldier of the Legation
Guard, as my servant. He had attended me on photograph-
ing expeditions on a former visit, and on the journey I found
him capable, faithful, quick, and full of "go," — so valuable
and efficient, indeed, as to ''take the shine" out of any sub-
sequent attendant. With these, a passport, and a kwan-ja or
letter from the Korean Foreign Office commending me to
official help (never used), my journey was made under the
best possible auspices.

The day before I left was spent in making acquaintance with
Mr. Yi Hak In, receiving farewell visits from many kind and
helpful friends, looking over the backs and tackle of the ponies
I had engaged for the journey, and in arranging a photo-
graphic outfit. Im was taught to make curry, an accomplish-
ment in which he soon excelled, and I had no other cooking
done on the journey. For the benefit of future travellers I will
mention that my equipment consisted of a camp-bed and bed-
ding, candles, a large, strong, doubly oiled sheet, a folding
chair, a kettle, two pots, a cup and two plates of enamelled
iron, some tea which turned out musty, some flour, curry

283

284 Korea and Her Neighbors

powder, and a tin of Edward's ''dessicated soup," which came
back unopened ! To the oft-repeated question, ** Did you eat
Korean food ? " I reply certainly — pheasants, fowls, potatoes,
and eggs. Warm winter clothing, a Japanese hirumaya' s hat
(the best of all travelling hats), and Korean string shoes
completed my outfit, and I never needed anything I had not
got!

The start on 7th November was managed in good time,
without any of the usual delays, and I may say at once that
the inapic^ the bugbear and torment of travellers usually, never
gave the slightest trouble. Though engaged by the day, they
were ready to make long day's journeys, were always willing
and helpful, and a month later we parted excellent friends.
As this is my second favorable experience, I am inclined to
til ink that Korean inapii are a maligned class. For each pony
and man, the food of both being included, I paid ^i, about
2S., per day when travelling, and half that sum when halting.
Mr. Yi had two ponies, I two baggage animals, on one of which
Im rode, and a saddle pony, i.e. a pack pony equipped with
my sidesaddle for the occasion.

Starting from the English Legation and the Customs' build-
ings, we left the city by the AVest Gate, and passing the stone
stumps which up till lately supported the carved and colored
roof under which generations of Korean kings after their
accession met the Chinese envoys, who came in great state to
invest them with Korean sovereignty, and through the narrow
and rugged defile known as the Peking Pass, we left the unique
capital and its lofty clambering wall out of sight. The day
was splendid even for a Korean autumn, and the frightful
black pinnacles, serrated ridges, and flaming corrugations of
Puk Han on the right of the road were atmospherically ideal-
ized into perfect beauty. For several miles the road was
thronged with bulls loaded with faggots, rice, and pine brush,
for the supply of the daily necessities of the city ; then, except
when passing through the villages, it became solitary enough,

Burial Customs 285

except for an occasional group of long-sworded Japanese trav-
ellers, or baggage ponies in charge of Japanese soldiers.

The road as far as Pa Ju lies through pretty country, small
valleys either terraced for rice, which was lying out to dry on
the dykes, or growing barley, wheat, millet, and cotton, sur-
rounded by low but shapely hills, denuded of everything but
oak and pine scrub, but with folds in which the Pinus sinensis
grew in dark clumps, lighted up by the vanishing scarlet of
the maple and the glowing crimson of the Ampelopsis Veitchii.
On the lower slopes, and usually in close proximity to the
timber, are numerous villages, their groups of deep-eaved,
brown-thatched roofs, on which scarlet capsicums were laid
out to dry, looking pretty enough as adjuncts to landscapes
which on the whole lack life and emphasis. The villages
through which the road passes were seen at their best, for the
roadway, serving for the village threshing floor, was daily swept
for the threshing of rice and millet, the passage of travellers
being a secondary consideration ; everything was dry, and
the white clothes of the people were consequently at their
cleanliest.

At noon we reached Ko-yang, a poor place of 300 hovels,
with ruinous official buildings of some size, once handsome.
At this, and every other magistracy up to Phyong-yang, from
20 to 30 Japanese soldiers were quartered in \\\tyamens. The
people hated them with a hatred which is the legacy of three
centuries, but could not allege anything against them, admit-
ting that they paid for all they got, molested no one, and were
seldom seen outside the yamen gates. There the inapu halted
for two hours to give their ponies and themselves a feed. This
midday halt is one bone of contention between travellers and
themselves. No amount of hunting and worrying them shortens
the halt by more than ten minutes, and I preferred peace of
spirit, only insisting that when the road admitted of it, as it
frequently did, they should travel 12 //, or about three and
three-quarter miles, an hour. At Ko-yang I began the custom

286 Korea and Her Neighbors

of giving the landlord of the inn at which I halted loo cash
for the room in which I rested, which gave great satisfaction.
I had my mattress laid upon the hot floor, and as Im, by in-
stinct, secured privacy for me by fastening up mats and cur-
tains over the paper walls and doors, these midday halts were
very pleasant. Almost every house in these roadside villages
and small towns has a low table of such food as Koreans love
laid out under the eaves.

Beyond Ko-yang, standing out in endless solemnity above a
pine wood on the side of a steep hill, are two of the strangely
few antiquities of which Korea can boast. These are two
mirioks, colossal busts, about 35 feet in height, carved out of
the solid rock. They are supposed to be relics of the very
early days of Korean Buddhism, when men were religious
enough to toil at such stupendous works, and to represent the
male and female elements in nature. They are side by side.
One wears a round and the other a square hat. The Bud-
dhistic calm, or rather I should say apathy, rests on their huge
faces, which have looked stolidly on many a change in Korea,
but on none greater than the last year had witnessed.

During the day we saw three funerals, and I observed that
a Japanese detachment which occupied the whole road filed to
the right and left to let one of the processions pass, the men
raising their caps to the corpse as they did so. These funerals
gave an impression of gaiety rather than grief. Two men
walked first, carrying silk bannerets which designated the
woman about to be interred as the wife of so and so, a married
woman having no name. Next came a man walking back-
wards with many streamers of colored ribbon floating from his
hat, ringing a large bell, and accompanying its clang with a
dissonance supposed to be singing. The coffin, under a four-
posted domed cover and concealed by gay curtains, was borne
on a platform by twelve men, and was followed by a large
party of male mourners, a man with a musical instrument, a
table, and a box of food. None of the faces were composed

Burial Customs 287

to a look of grief. On the dome were two mythical birds re-
sembling the phoenix. The dome and curtains were brilliantly
colored, and decorated with ribbon streamers. Two corpses,
each extended on a board and covered with white paper pasted
over small hoops, lay in the roadway at different places. These
were bodies of persons who had died far from home and were
being conveyed to their friends for burial. Later we met an-
other funeral, the corpse carried as before on a platform by
twelve bearers, who moved to a rhythmic chant of the most
cheerful description, the whole party being as jolly as if they
were going to a marriage. There was a cross in front of the gay
hearse with an extended dragon on each arm, and four large
gaily painted birds resembling pheasants were on the dome.

Korean customs as to death and burial deserve a brief notice.
When a man or woman falls ill, the mu-tang or sorceress is
called in to exorcise the spirit which has caused the illness.
When this fails and death becomes imminent, in the case of a
man no women are allowed to remain in the room but his
nearest female relations, and in that of a woman all men must
withdraw except her husband, father, and brother. After death
the body, specially at the joints, is shampooed, and when it
has been made flexible it is covered with a clean sheet and laid
for three days on a board, on which seven stars are painted.
This board is eventually burned at the grave. The "Star
Board," as it is called, is a euphemism for death, and is spoken
of as we speak of '' the grave." During these days the grave-
clothes, which are of good materials in red, blue, and yellow
coloring, are prepared. Korean custom enjoins that burial
shall be delayed in the case of a poor man three days only, in
that of a middle-class man nine days, of a nobleman or high
official three months, and in that of one of the Royal Family
nine months, but this period may be abridged or extended at
the pleasure of the King.

Man is supposed to have three souls. After death one occu-
pies the tablet, one the grave, and one the Unknown. During

288 Korea and Her Neighbors

the passing of the spirit there is complete silence. The under
garments of the dead are taken out by a servant, who waves
them in the air and calls him by name, the relations and friends
meantime wailing loudly. After a time the clothes are thrown
upon the roof. When the corpse has been temporarily dressed,
it is bound so tightly round the chest as sometimes to break
the shoulder blades, which is interpreted as a sign of gook luck.
After these last offices a table is placed outside the door, on
which are three bowls of rice and a squash. Beside it are
three pair of straw sandals. The rice and sandals are for the
three sajas^ or official servants, who come to conduct one of
the souls to the "Ten Judges." The squash is broken, the
shoes burned, and the rice thrown away within half an hour
after death. Pictures of the Slptai-wong or ''Ten Judges"
are to be seen in Buddhist temples in Korea. On a man's
^ death one of his souls is seized by their servants and carried
to the Unknown, where these Judges, who through their spies
are kept well informed as to human deeds, sentence it accord-
ingly, either to "a good place" or to one of the manifold
hells. The influence of Buddhism doubtless maintains the ob-
servance of this singular custom, even where the idea of its
significance is lost or discredited.

The coffin is oblong. Where interment is delayed, it is
hermetically sealed with several coats of lacquer. Until the
funeral there is wailing daily in the dead man's house at the
three hours of meals. Next the geomancer is consulted about
the site for the grave, and receives a fee heavy in proportion to
the means of the family. He is believed from long study to
have become acquainted with all the good and bad influences
which are said to reside in the ground. A fortunate site
brings rank, wealth, and many sons to the sons and grandsons
of the deceased, and should be, if possible, on the southerly
slope of a hill. He also chooses an auspicious day for the
burial.

In the case of a rich man, the grave with a stone altar in

Burial Customs 289

front of it is prepared beforehand, in that of a poor man not
till the procession arrives. The coffin is placed in a gaily deco-
rated hearse, and with wailing, music, singing, wine, food, and
if in the evening, with many colored lanterns, the cortege pro-
ceeds to the grave. A widow may accompany her husband's
corpse in a closed chair, though this appears unusual, but the
mourners are all men in immense hats, which conceal their
faces, and sackcloth clothing.

After the burial and the making of the circular mound over
the coffin, a libation of wine is poured out and the company
proceeds to sacrifice and to feast. Offerings of wine and
dried fish are placed on the stone altar in front of the grave if
it has been erected, or on small tables. The relatives, facing
these and the grave, make five prostrations, and a formula
wishing peace to the spirit which is to dwell there is repeated.
Behind the grave similar offerings and prostrations are made
to the mountain spirit, who presides over it, and who is the
host of the soul committed to his care. The wine is thrown
away, and the fish bestowed upon the servants. It will be ob-
served that no priest has any part in the ceremonies connected
with death and burial, and that two souls have now been dis-
posed of — one to the judgment of the Unknown, and the
other to the keeping of the mountain spirit.

A chair is invariably carried in a funeral procession con-
taining the memorial, or, as we say, the "ancestral tablet"
of the deceased, a strip of white wood, bearing the family
name, set in a socket. A part of the inscription on this is
written at the house, and it is completed at the grave. It is
carried back with exactly the same style and attendance that
the dead man would have had had he been living, for the third
soul is supposed to return to the house with the mourners, and
to take up its abode in the tablet, which is placed in a vacant
room and raised on a black lacquer chair with a black lacquer
table before it, on which renewed offerings are made of bread,
wine, cooked meat, and vermicelli soup, the spirit being sup-

290 Korea and Her Neighbors

posed to regale itself with their odors. The mourners again
prostrate themselves five times, after which they eat the offer-
ings in an adjoining room. It is customary for friends to
strew the rout of the procession with paper money.

In the period between the death and the interment silence
is observed in the house of mourning, and only those visitors
are received who come to condole with the family and speak of
the virtues of the departed. It is believed that conversation on
any ordinary topic will cause the corpse to shake in the coffin
and show other symptoms of unrest. For the same reason the
servants are very particular in watching the cats of the house-
hold if there are any, but cats are not in favor in Korea. It
is terribly unlucky for a cat to jump over a corpse. It may
even cause it to stand upright. After the deceased has
been carried out of the house, two or three mu-taiigs or
sorceresses enter it with musical instruments and the other
paraphernalia of their profession. After a time one becomes
** inspired " by the spirit of the dead man, and accurately im-
personates him, even to his small tricks of manner, movement,
and speech. She gives a narrative of his life in the first per-
son singular, if he were a bad man confessing his misdeeds,
which may have been unsuspected by his neighbors, and if he
were a good man, narrating his virtues with becoming modesty.
At the end she bows, takes a solemn farewell of those present,
and retires.

After the tablet has been removed to the ancestral temple,
and the period of mourning is over, meals are offered in the
shrine once every month, and also on the anniversary of each
death, all the descendants assembling, and these observances
extend backwards to the ancestors of five generations. Thus
it is a very costly thing to have many near relations and a
number of ancestors, the expense falling on the eldest son and
his heirs. A Korean gentleman told me that his nephew,
upon whom this duty falls, spends more upon it than upon his
household expenses.

Burial Customs 291

It is not till the three years' mourning for a father has ex-
pired that his tablet is removed to the ancestral temple which
rich men have near their houses. During the period of mourn-
ing it is kept in a vacant room, usually in the women's apart-
ments. A poor man puts it in a box on one side of his room,
and when he worships his other ancestors, strips of paper
with their names upon them are pasted on the mud wall. I
have slept in rooms in which the tablet lay smothered in dust
on one of the crossbeams. Common people only worship for
their ancestors of three generations. The anniversary of a
father's death is kept with much ceremony for three years.
On the previous night sacrifice is offered before the tablet, and
on the following day the friends pay visits of condolence to the
family, and eat varieties of food. During the day they visit
the grave and offer sacrifices to the soul and the mountain
spirit.

A widow wears mourning all her life. If she has no son
she acts the part of a son in performing the ancestral rites for
her husband. It has not been correct for widows to remarry.
If, however, a widow inherits property she occasionally mar-
ries to rid herself of importunities, in which case she is usually
robbed and deserted.

The custom of tolerating the remarriage of widows has,
however, lately been changed into the right of remarriage.

CHAPTER XXV

SONG-DO : A ROYAL CITY

IT grew dark before we reached Pa Ju, and the 7napu were
in great terror of tigers and robbers. It is unpleasant to
reach a Korean inn after nightfall, for there are no lights by
which to unload the baggage, and noise and confusion prevail.

When the traveller arrives a man rushes in with a brush,
stirs up the dust and vermin, and sometimes puts down a
coarse mat. Experience has taught me that an oiled sheet is a
better protection against vermin than a pony-load of insect
powder. I made much use of the tripod of my camera. It
served as a candle-stand, a barometer suspender, and an ar-
rangement on which to hang my clothes at night out of harm's
way. In two hours after arrival my food was ready, after
which Mr. Yi came in to talk over the day, to plan the mor-
row, to enlighten me on Korean customs, and to interpret my
orders to the faithful Im, and by 8.30 I was asleep !

After leaving Pa Ju the country is extremely pretty, and one
of the most picturesque views in Korea is from the height
overlooking the romantically situated village of Im-jin, cluster-
ing along both sides of a ravine, which terminates on the
broad Im-jin Gang, a tributary of the Han, in two steep rocky
bluffs, sprinkled with the Pinus sitiefisis, the two being con-
nected by a fine, double-roofed granite Chinese gateway, in-
scribed "Gate for the tranquillization of the West." The
road passing down the village street reaches the water's edge
through this relic, one of three or four similar barriers on this
high-road to China. The Im-jin Gang, there 343 yards
broad, has shallow water and a flat sandy shore on its north

292

Song-do: A Royal City 293

side, but a range of high bluffs, crowned with extensive old
defensive works, lines the south side, the gateway being the
only break for many miles. Below these the river is a deep
green stream, navigable for craft of 14 tons for 40 miles from
its mouth. There was a still, faintly blue atmosphere, and the
sails of boats passing dreamily into the mountains over the sil-
ver water had a most artistic effect.

There are two Chinese bridges on that road, curved slabs of
stone, supported on four-sided blocks of granite, giving one a
feeling of security, even though they have no parapets. Korean
bridges are poles laid over a river, with matting or brushwood
covered with earth upon them, and are usually full of holes.
These precarious structures had just been replaced after the
summer rains. A mapu usually goes ahead to test their solid-
ity. The region is extremely fertile, producing fine crops of
rice, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, cotton, sesamum, cas-
tor oil, beans, maize, tobacco, capsicums, egg plant, peas,
etc. But Russian and American kerosene is fast displacing the
vegetable oils for burning, and is producing the same revolu-
tion in village evening life which it has effected in the Western
Islands of Scotland. I never saw a Korean hamlet south of
Phyong-yang, however far from the main road, into which
kerosene had not penetrated.

I was obliged to halt for the night when only 10 //from
Song-do, all the more regretfully, because the people were un-
willing to receive a foreigner, and the family room which I
occupied, only 8 feet 6 inches by 6 feet, was heated up to 85°,
was poisoned with the smell of cakes of rotting beans, and
was so alive with vermin of every description that I was
obliged to suspend a curtain over my bed to prevent them
from falling upon it.

The next morning, in an atmosphere which idealized every-
thing, we reached Song-do, or Kai-song, now the second city
in the kingdom, once the capital of Hon-jo, one of the three
kingdoms which united to form Korea, and the capital of

294 Korea and Her Neighbors

Korea five centuries ago. A city of 60,000 people, lying to
the south of Sang-dan San, with a wall ten miles in circum-
ference running irregularly over heights, and pierced by
double-roofed gateways, with a peaked and splintered ridge
extending from Sang-dan San to the northeast, its higher
summits attaining altitudes of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, it has
a striking resemblance to Seoul.

The great gate is approached by an avenue of trees, and the
road is lined with seim-tjeimg-pi, monuments to good govern-
ors and magistrates, faithful widows, and pious sons. A wide
street, its apparent width narrowed by two rows of thatched
booths, divides the city. It was a scene of bustle, activity,
and petty trade, something like a fair. The women wear
white sheets gathered round their heads and nearly reaching
their feet. The street was thronged with men in huge hats
and very white clothing, with boy bridegrooms in pink gar-
ments and the quaint yellow hats which custom enjoins for
several months after marriage, and with mourners dressed in
sackcloth from head to foot, the head and shoulders concealed
by peaked and scalloped hats, the identity being further dis-
guised by two-handled sackcloth screens, held up to their eyes.
In thatched stalls on low stands and on mats on the ground
were all Korean necessaries and luxuries, among which were
large quantities of English piece goods, and hacked pieces of
beef with the blood in it, Korean killed meat being enough to
make any one a vegetarian. Goats are killed by pulling them
to and fro in a narrow stream, which method is said to destroy
the rank taste of the flesh ; dogs by twirling them in a noose
until they are unconscious, after which they are bled. I have
already inflicted on my readers an account of the fate of a
bullock at Korean hands. It was a busy, dirty, poor, mean
scene under the hot sun.

The Song-do inns are bad, and a friend of Mr. Yi kindly
lent me a house, partly in ruins, but with two rooms which
sheltered Im and myself, and in this I spent two pleasant days

Song-do: A Royal City 295

in lovely weather, Mr. Yi, who was visiting friends, escorting
me to the Song-do sights, which may be seen in one morning,
and to pay visits in some of the better-class houses. My quar-
ters, though by comparison very comfortable, would not at
home be considered fit for the housing of a better-class cow !
But Korea has a heavenly climate for much of the year. The
squalor, dust, and rubbish in my compound and everywhere
were inconceivable, though the city is rather a " well-to-do "
one. The water supply is atrocious, offal and refuse of all
kinds lying up to the mouths of the wells. It says something
for the security of Korea that a foreign lady could safely live
in a dwelling up a lonely alley in the heart of a big city, with
no attendant but a Korean soldier knowing not a word of Eng-
lish, who, had he been so minded, might have cut my throat
and decamped with my money, of which he knew the where-
abouts, neither my door nor the compound having any fasten-
ing !

Points of interest in a Korean city are few, and the ancient
capital is no exception to the rule. There is a fine bronze bell
with curiously involved dragons in one of the gate towers, cast
five centuries ago, an archery ground with official pavilions on
a height with a superb view, the Governor's yamen, once
handsome, now ruinous, with Japanese sentries, a dismal tem-
ple to Confucius, and a showy one to the God of War. Out-
side the crowd and bustle of the city, reached by a narrow
path among prosperous ginseng farms and persimmon-em-
bowered hamlets, are the lonely remains of the palace of the
Kings who reigned in Korea prior to the dynasty of which the
present sovereign is the representative, and even in their for-
lornness they give the impression that the Korean Kings were
much statelier monarchs then than now.

The remains consist of an approach to the main platform on
which the palace stood, by two subsidiary platforms, the first
reached by a nearly obliterated set of steps. Four staircases
15 feet wide, of thirty steps each, lead to a lofty artificial

296 Korea and Her Neighbors

platform, faced with hewn stone in great blocks, 14 feet high,
and by rough measurement 846 feet in length. On the east
side there are massive abutments. On the west the platform
broadens irregularly. At the entrance, 80 feet wide, at the
top of the steps, there are the bases of columns suggestive of
a very stately approach. The palace platform is intersected
by massive stone foundations of halls and rooms, some of large
area. It is backed by a pine-clothed knoll, and is prettily
situated in an amphitheatre of hills.

Song-do as a royal city, and as one of the so-called for-
tresses for the protection of the capital, still retains many an-
cient privileges. It is a bustling business town, and a great
centre of the grain trade. It has various mercantile guilds
with their places of business, small shops built round com-
pounds with entrance gates. It makes wooden shoes, coarse
pottery and fine matting, and imports paper, which it manu-
factures with sesamum oil into the oil paper for which Korea
is famous, and which is made into cloaks, umbrellas, tobacco-
pouches, and sheets for walls and floors. In answer to many
inquiries, I learned that trade had improved considerably
since the war, but the native traders now have to compete with
fourteen Japanese shops, and to suffer the presence of forty
Japanese residents.

I have left until the last the commodity for which Song-do
is famous, and which is the chief source of its prosperity —
ginseng. Panax Gifisettg or qiiinquefolia (?) is, as its name
imports, a ''panacea." No one can be in the Far East for
many days without hearing of this root and its virtues. No
drug in the British Pharmacopoeia rivals with us the estimation
in which this is held by the Chinese. It is a tonic, a febri-
fuge, a stomachic, the very elixir of life, taken spasmodically
or regularly in Chinese wine by most Chinese who can afford
it. It is one of the most valuable articles which Korea ex-
ports, and one great source of its revenue. In the steamer in
which I left Chemulpo there was a consignment of it worth

Song-do: A Royal City 297

^140,000. But valuable as the cultivated root is, it is nothing
to the value of the wild, which grows in Northern Korea, a
single specimen of which has been sold for ;!^4o ! It is chiefly
found in the Kang-ge Mountains ; but it is rare, and the search
so often ends in failure, that the common people credit it with
magical properties, and believe that only men of pure lives
can find it.

The ginseng season was at its height. People talked,
thought, and dreamed ginseng, for the risks of its six or seven
years' growth were over, and the root was actually in the fac-
tory. I went to several ginseng farms, and also saw the differ-
ent stages of the manufacturing process, and received the
same impression as in Siberia, that if industry were lucrative,
and the Korean were sure of his earnings, he would be an in-
dustrious and even a thrifty person.

All round Song-do are carefully fenced farms on which gin-
seng is grown with great care and exquisite neatness on beds
18 inches wide, 2 feet high, and neatly bordered with slates.
It is sown in April, transplanted in the following spring, and
again in three years into specially prepared ground, not re-
cently cultivated, and which has not been used for ginseng
culture for seven years. Up to the second year the plant has
only two leaves. In the fourth year it is six inches high with
four leaves, standing out at right angles from the stalk. It
reaches maturity in the sixth or seventh year. During its
growth it is sheltered from both wind and sun by well-made
reed roofs with blinds, which are raised or lowered as may be
required. When the root is taken up it is known as " white
ginseng," and is bought by merchants, who get it *' manufac-
tured," about 3j^ catties of the fresh root making one cattie
of " red " or commercial ginseng. The grower pays a tax of
20 cents per cattie, and the merchant 16 dollars 2^ cattie for the
root as received from the manufacturer.

The annual time of manufacture depends on orders given
by the Government. The growers and merchants make the

298 Korea and Her Neighbors

most profit when the date is early. Only two manufacturers
are licensed, and one hundred and fifty growers. The quan-
tity to be manufactured is also limited. In 1895 it was 15,000
catties of red ginseng and 3,000 of ''beards." The terms
*' beards" and "tails" are used to denote different parts of
the root, which eventually has a grotesque resemblance to a
headless man ! It is possible that this likeness is the source of
some of the almost miraculous virtues which are attributed to
it. Everything about the factories is scrupulously clean, and
would do credit to European maiuagement. The row of
houses used by what we should call the excisemen are well
built and comfortable. There are two officials sent from Seoul
by the Agricultural Department for the ''season," with four
policemen and two attendants, whose expenses are paid by the
manufacturers, and each step of the manufacture and the
egress of the workmen are carefully watched. Mr. Yi was
sent by the Customs to make special inquiries in connection
with the revenue derived.

Ginseng is steamed for twenty-four hours in large earthen jars
over iron pots built into furnaces, and is then partially dried
in a room kept at a high temperature by charcoal. The final
drying is effected by exposing the roots in elevated flat baskets
to the rays of the bright winter sun. The human resemblance
survives these processes, but afterwards the "beards" and
"tails," used chiefly in Korea, are cut off, and the trunk,
from 3 to 4 inches long, looks like a piece of clouded amber.
These trunks are carefully picked over, and being classified
according to size, are neatly packed in small oblong baskets
containing about five catties each, twelve or fourteen of these
being packed in a basket, which is waterproofed and matted,
and stamped and sealed by the Agricultural Department as
ready for exportation. A basket, according to quality, is
worth from $14,000 to $20,000 ! In a good season the grower
makes about fifteen times his outlay. Ginseng was a Royal
monopoly, but times have changed. This medicine, which

Song-do: A Royal City 299

has such a high and apparently partially deserved reputation
throughout the Far East, does not suit Europeans, and is of
little account with European doctors.

A Post Office had been established in Song-do under Korean
management, and I not only received but sent a letter, vvh.ch
reached its destination safely ! Buddhism still prevails to
some extent in this city, and large sums are expended upon the
services of sorcerers. In Song-do I saw, what very rarely may
be seen in Seoul and elsewhere, a " Red Door." These are a
very high honor reserved for rare instances of faithfulness in
widows, loyalty in subjects, and piety in sons. When a widow
(almost invariably of the upper class) weeps ceaselessly for her
husband, maintains the deepest seclusion, attends loyally to her
father- and mother-in-law, and spends her time in pious deeds,
the people of the neighborhood, proud of her virtues, repre-
sent them to the Governor of the province, who conveys their
recommendation to the King, with whom it rests to confer the
" Red Door " The distinction is also given to the family ot
an eminently loyal subject, who has given his life for the

King's life.

The case of a son whose father has reached a great age is
somewhat different, and the honor is more emphatic still. His
filial virtue is shown by such methods as these. He goes
every morning to his father's apartments, asks him how his
health is, how he has slept, what he has eaten for breakfast,
and how he enjoyed the meal_if he has any fancies for din-
ner and if he shall go to the market and buy him some tat
(the best fish in Korea), and if he shall come back and assist
him to take a walk? The reader will observe how extremely
material the pious son's inquiries are. Such assiduity con-
tinued during a course of years, on being represented to the
King, may receive the coveted red portal. In former days
these matters used to be referred to the Suzerain, the Emperor
of China. In Song-do, as in the villages, a straw fringe is
frequently to be seen stretched across a door, either plain or

300

Korea and Her Neighbors

with bits of charcoal knotted into it. The former denotes the
birth of a girl, the latter that of a boy. A girl is not specially
welcome, nor is the occasion one of festivity, but neither is it,
as in some countries, regarded as a calamity, although, if it
be a firstborn, the friends of the father are apt to write letters
of condolence to him, with the consoling suggestion that "the
next will be a boy."

^^

4-.^. n

CHIL-SUNG MON, SEVEN STAR GATE.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PHYONG-YANG BATTLEFIELD

GLORIOUS weather favored my departure from the an-
cient Korean capital. The day's journey lay through
pretty country, small valleys, and picturesquely shaped hills,
on which the vegetation, whatever it was, had turned to a pur-
ple as rich as the English heather blossom, while the blue
gloom of the pines emphasized the flaming reds of the dying
leafage. The villages were few and small, and cultivation was
altogether confined to the valleys. Pheasants were so abun-
dant that the mapu pelted them out of the cover by the road-
side, and wild ducks abounded on every stream. The one
really fine view of the day is from the crest of a hill just be-
yond 0-hung-suk Ju, where there is a second defensive gate,
with a ruinous wall carried along a ridge for some distance on
either side. The masonry and the gate-house are fine, and the
view down the wild valley beyond with its rich autumn color-
ing was almost grand. It was evident that officials were ex-
pected, for the road was being repaired everywhere— that is,
spadefuls of soft soil were being taken from the banks and
roadsides, and were being thrown into the ruts and holes to
deepen the quagmire which the next rain would produce.
From four to seven men were working at each spade! A
great part of the male population had turned out ; for when
an official of rank is to travel, every family in the district must
provide one male member or a substitute to put the road in
order. The repairs of the roads and bridges devolve entirely
on the country people.

The following day brought a change of weather. My room

301

302 Korea and Her Neighbors

had no hot floor and the mercury at daybreak was only 20° !
When we started, a strong northwester was blowing, which in-
creased to a gale by noon, the same fierce gale in which at
Chemulpo PI. M.S. Edgar lost her boat with forty-seven men.
My pony and I would have been blown over a wretched bridge
had not four men linked themselves together to support us ;
and later, on the top of a precipice above a river, a gust came
with such force that the animals refused to face it, and one of
them was as nearly lost as possible. By noon it was impossible
to sit on our horses, and we fought the storm on foot. When
Im lifted me from my pony I fell down, and it took several
men shouting with laughter to set me on my feet again. When
Mr. Yi and I spoke to each other, our voices had a bobbery
clatter, and sentences broke off halfway in an insane giggle. I
felt as if there were hardly another "shot in the locker," but
if a traveller ''says die," the men lose all heart, so I sum-
moned up all my pluck, took a photograph after the noon halt,
and walked on at a good pace.

But the wind, with the mercury at 26°, was awful, gripping
the heart and benumbing the brain. I have not felt anything
like it since I encountered the "devil wind" on the Zagros
heights in Persia. At some distance from our destination Mr.
Yi, Im, and the mapit begged me to halt, as they could no
longer face it, though the accommodation for man and beast
at Tol Maru, where we put up, was the worst imaginable, and
the large village the filthiest, most squalid, and most absolutely
poverty-stricken place I saw in that land of squalor. The
horses were crowded together, and their baffled attempts at
fighting were only less hideous than the shouts and yells of the
mapiij who were constantly being roused out of a sound sleep
to separate them.

My room was 8 feet by 6, and much occupied by the chat-
tels of the people, besides being alive with cockroaches and
other forms of horrid life. The dirt and discomfort in which
the peasant Koreans live are incredible.

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 303

All uninteresting tract of country succeeded, and some time
was occupied in threading long treeless valleys, cut up by stony
beds of streams, margined by sandy flats, inundated in sum-
mer, and then covered chiefly with withered reeds, asters, and
artemisia, a belated aster every now and then displaying its
untimely mauve blossom. All these and the dry grasses and
weeds of the hillsides were being cut and stacked for fuel, even
brushwood having disappeared. This work is done by small
boys, who carry their loads on wooden saddles suited to their
size. That region is very thinly peopled, only a few hamlets
of squalid hovels being scattered over it, and cultivation was rare
and untidy, except in one fine agricultural valley where wheat
and barley were springing. No animals, except a breed of
pigs not larger than English terriers, were to be seen.

One of the most dismal and squalid " towns " on this route
is Shur-hung, a long rambling village of nearly 5,000 souls,
and a magistracy, built along the refuse-covered bank of a
bright, shallow stream. As if the Crown official were the upas
tree, the town with a yameii is always more forlorn than any
other. In Shur-hung the large and once handsome yamen
buildings are all but in ruins, and so is the Confucian temple,
visited periodically, as all such temples are, by the magistrate,
who bows before the tablet of the '' most holy teacher " and
offers an animal in sacrifice.

The Korean official is the vampire which sucks the life-
blood of the people. We had crossed the Tao-jol, the
boundary between the provinces of Kyong-hwi and Hwang-
hai, and were then in the latter. Most officials of any standing
live in Seoul for pleasure and society, leaving subordinates in
charge, and as their tenure of office is very brief, they regard
the people within their jurisdiction rather with reference to
their squeezeableness than to their capacity for improvement.

Forty Japanese soldiers found a draughty shelter within the
tumble-down buildings of the yamen. As I walked down the
street one of them touched me on the shoulder, asking my

304 Korea and Her Neighbors

nationality, whence I came, and whither I was going, not
quite politely, I thought. When I reached my room a dozen
of them came and gradually closed round my door, which I
could not shut, standing almost within it. A trim sergeant
raised his cap to me, and passing on to Mr. Yi's room, asked
him where I came from and whither I was going, and on hear-
ing, replied, " All right," raised his cap to me, and departed,
withdrawing his men with him. This was one of several
domiciliary visits, and though they were usually very politely
made, they suggested the query as to the right to make them,
and to whom the mastership in the land belonged. There, as
elsewhere, though the people hated the Japanese with an intense
hatred, they were obliged to admit that they were very quiet
and paid for everything they got. If the soldiers had not been
in European clothes, it would not have occurred to me to
think them rude for crowding round my door.

A day's ride through monotonous country brought us to
Pong-san, where we halted in the dirtiest hole I had till then
been in. As soon as my den was comfortably warm, myriads
of house flies, blackening the rafters, renewed a semi-torpid
existence, dying in heaps in the soup and curry, filling the
well of the candlestick with their singed bodies, and crawling
in hundreds over my face. Next came the cockroaches in
legions, large and small, torpid and active, followed by a great
army of fleas and bugs, making life insupportable. To judge
from the significant sounds from the public room, no one slept
all night, and when I asked Mr. Yi after his welfare the next
morning, he uttered the one word '' miserable." Discomforts
of this nature, less or more, are inseparable from the Korean
inn.

The following day, at a large village, we came upon the
weekly market. It is usual to inquire regarding the trade of a
district, and as the result of my inquiries, I assert that
** trade" in the ordinary sense has no existence in a great
part of Central and Northern Korea, i.e. there is no exchange

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 305

of commodities between one place and another, no exports, no
imports by resident merchants, and no industries supplying
more than a local demand. Such are to be found to some ex-
tent in Southern Korea, and specially in the province of
Chul-la. Apart from Phyong-yang, ''trade" does not exist
in the region through which I travelled.

Reasons for such a state of things may be found in the de-
based coinage, so bulky that a pony can only carry ;£io worth
of it, the entire lack of such banking facilities as even in
Western China render business transactions easy ; the general
mutual distrust ; prejudices against preparing hides and work-
ing leather ; caste prejudices ; the general insecurity of earn-
ings, ignorance absolutely inconceivable, and the existence of
numerous guilds which possess practical monopolies.

Under Japanese influence, however, the superb silver yen
has made its way slowly into the interior, and instead of hav-
ing to carry a load of cash, as on my former journey, or to be
placed in great difficulties by the want of it, this large silver
coin was readily taken at all the inns, although I did not see a
single specimen of the new Korean coinage.

'' Trade," as I became acquainted with it, is represented by
Japanese buyers, who visit the small towns and villages, buy-
ing up rice, grain, and beans, which they forward to the ports
for shipment to Japan, and by an organized corporation of
pusang or pedlars, one of the most important of the many
guilds which have been among the curious features of Korea.
There are no shops in villages, and few, where there are
any, even in small towns. It is, in fact, impossible to buy
anything except on the market-day, as no one keeps any stock
of anything. At the weekly market the usual melancholy
dulness of a Korean village is exchanged for bustle, color, and
crowds of men. From an early hour in the morning the paths
leading to the officially appointed centre are thronged with
peasants bringing in their wares for sale or barter, chiefly
fowls in coops, pigs, straw shoes, straw hats, and wooden

3o6 Korea and Her Neighbors

spoons, while the main road has its complement of merchants,
i.e. pedlars, mostly fine, strong, well-dressed men, either car-
rying their heavy packs themselves or employing porters or
bulls for the purpose. These men travel on regular circuits to
the village centres, and are industrious and respectable. A
few put up stalls, specially those who sell silks, gauzes, cords
for girdles, dress shoes, amber, buttons, silks in skeins, small
mirrors, tobacco-pouches, dress combs of tortoise-shell for
men's topknots, tape girdles for trousers, boxes with mirror
tops, and the like. But most of the articles, from which one
learns a good deal about the necessaries and luxuries required
by the Korean, are exposed for sale on low tables or on mats
on the ground, the merchant giving the occupant of the
house before which he camps a few cash for the accommoda-
tion.

On such tables are sticks of pulled candy as thick as an
arm, some of it stuffed with sesamum seeds, a sweetmeat sold
in enormous quantities, and piece goods, shirtings of Japanese
and English make, Victoria lawns, hempen cloth, Turkey-red
cottons, Korean flimsy silks, dyes, chiefly aniline, which are
sold in great quantities, together with saffron, indigo, and
Chinese Prussian blue. On these also are exposed long pipes,
contraband in the capital, and Japanese cigarettes, coming into
great favor with young men and boys, with leather courier
bags and lucifer matches from the same country, wooden
combs, hairpins with tinsel heads, and, such is the march of
ideas, purses for silver ! Paper, the best of the Korean man-
ufactures, in its finer qualities produced in Chul-la Do, is hon-
ored by stalls. Every kind is purchasable in these markets,
from the beautiful, translucent, buff, oiled paper, nearly equal
to vellum in appearance and tenacity, used for the floors of
middle- and upper-class houses, and the stout paper for cover-
ing walls, to the thin, strong film for writing on, and a beau-
tiful fabric, a sort of frothy gauze, for wrapping up delicate
fabrics, as well as the coarse fibrous material, used for covering

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 307

heavy packages, and intermediate grades, applied to every
imaginable purpose, such as the making of string, almost all
manufactured from the paper mulberry.

On mats on the ground are exposed straw mats, straw and
string shoes, flints for use with steel, black buckram dress hats,
coarse, narrow cotton cloth of Korean manufacture, rope muz-
zles for horses (much needed), sweeping whisks, wooden
sabots, and straw, reed, and bamboo hats in endless variety.
On these also are rough iron goods, family cooking-pots,
horseshoes, spade-shoes, door-rings, nails, and carpenter's
tools, when of native manufacture, as rough as they can be ;
and Korean roots and fruits, tasteless and untempting, great
hard pears much like raw parsnips, chestnuts, peanuts, per-
simmons which had been soaked in water to take the acridity
out of them, and ginger. There were coops of fowls and
piles of pheasants, brought down by falcons, gorgeous birds,
selling at six for a yen (about 4d. each), and torn and hacked
pieces of bull beef.

One prominent feature of that special market was the native
pottery, both coarse and brittle ware, clay, with a pale green
glaze rudely applied, small jars and bowls chiefly, and a
coarser ware, nearly black and slightly iridescent, closely re-
sembling iron. This pottery is of universal use among the
poor for cooking-pots, water-jars, refuse-jars, receptacles for
grain and pulse, and pickle-jars 5 feet high, roomy enough to
hold a man, two of which are a bull's load. At that season
these jars were in great request, for the peasant world was oc-
cupied, the men in digging up a great hard white radish
weighing from 2 to 4 lbs., and the women in washing its great
head of partially blanched leaves, which, after being laid
aside in these jars in brine, form one great article of a Korean
peasant's winter diet.

Umbrella hats, oiled paper, hat covers, pounded capsicums,
rice, peas, and beans, bean curd, and other necessaries of
Korean existence, were there, but business was very dull, and

3o8 Korea and Her Neighbors

the crowds of people were nearly as quiet as the gentle bulls
which stood hour after hour among them. Late in the after-
noon, the pedlars packed up their wares and departed e?i route
for the next centre, and a good deal of hard drinking closed
the day. I have been thus minute in my description because
the peripatetic merchant really represents the fashion of
Korean trade, and the wares which are brought to market are
both the necessaries and luxuries of Korean existence.

The reader will agree with me that, except for a certain
amount of insight into Korean customs which can only be
gained by mixing freely with Koreans, the journey from Seoul
to Phyong-yang tends to monotony, though at the time Mr.
Yi's brightness, intelligence, sense of fun, and unvarying good-
nature made it very pleasant. Among the few features of in-
terest on the road are the " Hill Towns," of which three are
striking objects, specially one on the hill opposite to the
magistracy of Pyeng-san, the hilltop being surrounded by a
battlemented wall two miles in circuit, enclosing a tangled
thicket containing a few hovels and the remains of some
granaries. Unwalled towns are supposed to possess such
strongholds, with stores of rice and soy^ as refuges in times
of invasion or rebellion, but as they have not been required
for three centuries, they are now ruinous. The one on a high
hill above Sai-nam, where the last Chinese gate occurs, is im-
posing from its fine gateway and the extent of ground it en-
closes.

Two days before reaching Phyong-yang we crossed the high-
est pass on the road, and by a glen wooded with such decid-
uous trees, shrubs, and trailers as ash, elaeagnus, euonymus,
horn-beam, oak, lime, Acanthopanax ricinifolia, actinidia with
scarlet berries, clematis, Ampelopsis Veitchii, etc., descended
to the valley of the Nam-chhon, a broad but shallow stream
which joins the Tai-dong. On the right bank, where the
stream, crossed by a dilapidated bridge, is 128 yards wide, the
town of Whang Ju is picturesquely situated, 36 // from the sea,

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 309

at the base of two low fir-crowned hills, which terminate in
cliffs above the Nam-chhon.

A battlemented wall 9 // in circumference, with several fine
towers and gateways, encloses the town, and being carried
along the verge of the cliff and over the downs and ups of the
hills, has a very striking appearance. It was a singularly at-
tractive view. The Korean sky was at its bluest, and the wind-
ing Nam-chhon was seen in glimpses here and there through
the broad fertile plain in reaches as blue,* and the broken
sparkle of its shallow waters flashed in sapphire gleams against
the gray rock and the gray walls of the city. On the wall,
and grouped in the handsome Water Gate, were a number of
Japanese soldiers watching a crowd of Koreans spearing white
fish with three-pronged forks from rafts made of two bundles
of reeds with a cask lashed between them, and from the bridge
the ruinous state of the walls and towers could not be seen.

Whang Ju is memorable to me as being the first place I saw
which had suffered from the ravages of recent war. There the
Japanese came upon the Chinese, but there was no fighting at
that point. Yet whatever happened has been enough to re-
duce a flourishing town with an estimated population of 30,000
souls to one of between 5,000 and 6,000, and to destroy what-
ever prosperity it had.

I passed through the Water Gate into a deplorable scene of
desolation. There were heaps of ruins, some blackened by
fire, others where the houses had apparently collapsed "all of
a heap," with posts and rafters sticking out of it. There are
large areas of nothing but this and streets of deserted houses,
sadder yet, with doors and windows gone for the bivouac fires
of the Japanese, and streets where roofless mud walls alone
were standing. In some parts there were houses with windows
gone and torn paper waving from their walls, and then per-
haps an inhabited house stood solitary among the deserted or
destroyed, emphasizing the desolation. Some of the destruc-
tion was wrought by the Chinese, some by the Japanese, and

310 Korea and Her Neighbors

much resulted from the terrified flight of more than 20,000 of
the inhabitants.

North of Whang Ju are rich plains of productive, stoneless,
red alluvium, extending towards the Tai-dong for nearly 40
miles. On these there were villages partly burned and partly
depopulated and ruinous, and tracts of the superb soil had
passed out of cultivation owing to the flight of the cultivators,
and there was a total absence of beasts, the splendid bulls of
the region having perished under their loads en route for Man-
churia.

It was a dreary journey that day through partially destroyed
villages, relapsing plains, and slopes denuded of every stick
which could be burned. There were no wayfarers on the
roads, no movement of any kind, and as it grew dusk the
mapu were afraid of tigers and robbers, and we halted for the
night at the wretched hamlet of Ko-moun Tari, where I ob-
tained a room with delay and difficulty, partly owing to the
unwillingness of the people to receive a foreigner. They had
suffered enough from foreigners, truly !

The concluding day's march was through a pleasant country,
though denuded of trees, and the approach to a great city was
denoted by the number of villages, daemon shrines, and refresh-
ment booths on the road, the increased traffic, and eventually,
by a long avenue of stone tablets, some of them under highly
decorated roofs, recording the virtues of Phyong-yang officials
for 250 years !

The first view of Phyong-yang delighted me. The city has
a magnificent situation, taken advantage of with much skill,
and at a distance merits the epithet "imposing." It was a
glorious afternoon. All the low ranges which girdle the rich
plain through which the Tai-dong winds were blue and violet,
melting into a blue haze, the crystal waters of the river were
bluer still, brown-sailed boats drifted lazily with the stream,
and above it the gray mass of the city rose into a dome of un-
clouded blue.

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 311

It is built on lofty ground rising abruptly from the river,
above which a fine wall climbs picturesquely over irregular,
but always ascending altitudes, till it is lost among the pines
of a hill which overhangs the Tai-dong. The great double-
roofed Tai-dong Mon (river gate), decorated pavilions on the
walls, the massive curled roofs of the Governor's j^;;/^;?, a large
Buddhist monastery and temple on a height, and a fine temple
to the God of War, prominent objects from a distance, prepare
one for something quite apart from the ordinary meanness of
a Korean city.

Crossing the clear flashing waters of the Tai-dong with our
ponies in a crowded ferry-boat, we found ourselves in the slush
of the dark Water Gate, at all hours of the day crowded with
water-carriers. There are no wells in the city, the reason as-
signed for the deficiency being that the walls enclose a boat-
shaped area, and that the digging of wells would cause the
boat to sink ! The water is carried almost entirely in Ameri-
can kerosene tins. I lodged at the house of a broker, and had
nice clean rooms for myself and Im, quite quiet, and with a
separate access from the street. It was truly a luxury to have
roof, walls, and floor papered with thick oiled paper much re-
sembling varnished oak, but there was no hot floor, and I had
to rely for warmth solely on the " fire bowl."

Taking a most diverting boy as my guide, I went outside
the city wall, through some farming country to a Korean house
in a very tumble-to-pieces compound, which he insisted was
the dwelling of the American missionaries; but I only found
a Korean family, and there were no traces of foreign occu-
pation in glass panes let into the paper of the windows and
doors. Nothing daunted, the boy pulled me through a smaller
compound, opened a door, and pushed me into what was mani-
festly posing as a foreign room, gave me a chair, took one him-
self, and offered me a cigarette !

I had reached the right place. It was a very rough Korean
room, about the length and width of a N.W. Railway saloon

312 Korea and Her Neighbors

carriage. It had three camp-beds, three chairs, a trunk for a
table, and a few books and writing materials, as well as a few
articles of male apparel hanging on the mud walls. I waited
more than an hour, every attempt at departure being forcibly
as well as volubly resisted by the urchin, imagining the devo-
tion which could sustain educated men year after year in such
surroundings, and then they came in hilariously, and we had
a most pleasant evening. I shall say more of them later. It
was a weird walk through ruins which looked ghostly in the
starlight to my curious quarters in the densest part of the city
by the Water Gate, where at intervals through the night I heard
the beat of the sorcerer's drum and the shrieking chant of the
mu-tang.

It may be taken for granted that every Korean winter day is
splendid, but the following day in Phyong-yang was heavenly.
Three Koreans called on me in the morning, very courteous
persons, but as Mr. Yi and I had parted company for a time
on reaching the city, the interpretation was feeble, and we
bowed and smiled, and smiled and bowed with tedious iter-
ation without coming to much mutual understanding, and I
was glad when the time came for seeing the city and battle-
field under Mr. Moffett's guidance.

On such an incomparable day everything looked at its very
best, but also at its very worst, for the brilliant sunshine lit up
desolations sickening to contemplate, — a prosperous city of
80,000 inhabitants reduced to decay and 15,000 — four-fifths
of its houses destroyed, streets and alleys choked with ruins,
hill slopes and vales once thick with Korean crowded home-
steads, covered with gaunt hideous remains — fragments of
broken walls, kang floors, kang chimneys, indefinite heaps in
which roofs and walls lay in unpicturesque confusion — and
still worse, roofs and walls standing, but doors and windows
all gone, suggesting the horror of human faces with their eyes
put out. Everywhere there were the same scenes, miles of
them, and very much of the desolation was charred and

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 313

blackened, shapeless, hideous, hopeless, under the mocking
sunlight.

Phyong-yang was not taken by assault ; there was no actual
fighting in the city, both the Chinese who fled and the Japa-
nese who occupied posed as the friends of Korea, and all this
wreck and ruin was brought about not by enemies, but by
those who professed to be fighting to give her independence
and reform. It had gradually come to be known that the
" woje?i (dwarfs) did not kill Koreans," hence many had re-
turned. Some of these unfortunate fugitives were picking
their way among the heaps, trying to find indications which
might lead them to the spots where all they knew of home
once existed ; and here and there, where a family found their
walls and roof standing, they put a door and window into one
room and lived in it among the ruins of five or six.

When the Japanese entered and found that the larger part
of the population had fled, the soldiers tore out the posts and
woodwork, and often used the roofs also for fuel, or lighted
fires on house floors, leaving them burning, when the houses
took fire and perished. They looted the property left by the
fugitives during three weeks after the battle, taking even from
Mr. Mofl'ett's house ^700 worth, although his servant made a
written protest, the looting being sanctioned by the presence
of officers. Under these circumstances the prosperity of the
most prosperous city in Korea was destroyed. If such are the
results of war in the '* green tree," what must they be in the
''dry"?

During the subsequent occupation the Japanese troops be-
haved well, and all stores obtained in the town and neighbor-
hood were scrupulously paid for. Intensely as the people
hated them, they admitted that quiet and good order had been
preserved, and they were very apprehensive that on their with-
drawal they would suff'er much from the Kun-ren-tai, a regi-
ment of Koreans drilled and armed by the Japanese, and these
had already begun to rob and beat the people, and to defy the

314 Korea and Her Neighbors

civil authorities. The main street on my second visit had as-
sumed a bustling appearance. There was much building up
and pulling down, for Japanese traders had obtained all the
eligible business sites, and were transforming the small, dark,
low, Korean shops into large, light, airy, dainty Japanese erec-
tions, well stocked with Japanese goods, and specially with
kerosene lamps of every pattern and price, the Defries and
Hinckes patents being unblushingly infringed.

Phyong-yang has a truly beautiful situation on the right or
north bank of the clear, bright Tai-dong, 400 yards wide at
the ferry. It occupies an undulating plateau, and its wall,
parallel for two miles and a half, rises from the river level at
the stately Water Gate, and following its windings, mounts es-
carped hills to a height of over 400 feet, turning westwards at
the crest of the cliff at a sharp angle marked by a pavilion,
one of several, and follows the western ridge of the plateau,
where it falls steeply down to a fertile rolling plain where the
one real battle of the late war was fought.

This wall, which is in excellent repair, is a loopholed and
battlemented structure, 20 feet high, pierced by several gates
with gate towers. The city, large as it was, was once much
larger, for the old wall on the west side encloses a far larger
area than the modern one. The walk over the grassy undu-
lations within the wall and up to the northern pine-clothed
summit is entrancing, and the views, even in winter, are ex-
quisite— eastwards over a rich plain to the mountains through
which the Tai-dong cuts its way, or northwest to one of its
affluents and the great battlefield over which in 1593 the joint
forces of Chinese and Koreans poured to recover Phyong-yang
from the Japanese, or seawards where the clear bright waters
wind through fertile and populous country, or the hilly area
within the walls where pine-clothed knolls conceal the devas-
tations, and the Governor's ymnen, temples, and monasteries
make a goodly show.

Between the city and the Chinese frontier is the largest and

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 315

richest plain in Korea; to the east where the violet shadows
lay are the valleys of the two branches of the Tai-dong, rich
in silk, iron, and cotton, while within 10 miles there are at
least five coal-mines,^ and for all produce there is easy com-
munication with the sea, 36 miles distant, for vessels of light
draught, by means of the river which flows below the city
wall. Timber is rafted down the Tai-dong in summer. The
Peking road, which I had followed thus far, and which for
centuries has linked Phyong-yang with the outer world and
the capital, is another element in the former prosperity of the
city. It was to photograph for the widow and family of Gen-
eral Tso of Mukden, the commander of the best-disciplined
and best-equipped cavalry brigade in the Chinese army, the
scenes connected with his last days and death that I visited
the hill within the wall.

The river wall of Phyong-yang, after 2 miles of an undulat-
ing ascent, turns sharply at a pavilion, outside of which the
ground falls precipitously, to rise again in a knife-like ridge,
the three highest points of which are crowned with Chinese
forts. From this pavilion the wall, following the lie of the
hill slopes rapidly down to a very picturesque and narrow
gate, the Chil-sung Man or Seven Star Gate, after which it
trends in a northwesterly direction to the Fotong Mon.

i There are five coal-mines at distances varying from lO to 30 It from
Phyong-yang, those of Yang-tang, 15 H away, producing the best quahty.
With rich iron ore close to the river bank at Kai Chhon, about 36 h off,
the elements of prosperity are ready to hand. The " coal-owners'" have
no proper appliances for working the coal, relying chiefly on Korean
axes, and the "output" is very small. Much money has been spent m
trying to get the coal, and in two mines they cannot proceed any farther
with their present tools. The difficulties of transport are great, and there
is no demand for any quantity in Phyong-yang itself, but the minei^l is
there in abundance and of good quality, and only awaits capital and en-
terprise. A tax of 5 per cent, is levied on all coal sent away from the
mines. The total export for 1895 was only 652 tons, valued at 4 dols.
20 cts. per ton (9s.)-

316 Korea and Her Neighbors

In the pine wood, at the highest part of the angle formed
by the wall, General Tso had built three mud forts or camps
with walls 10 feet high. The ground under the trees is dotted
with the stone-lined cooking holes of his men, blackened with
the smoke of their last fires. On the afternoon of the 15th of
September, 1894, General Tso and his force, which mustered
5,000 men when it left Mukden, but must have been greatly-
diminished by desertion and death, made his fatal sally, pass-
ing through the Chil-sung M'on and down the steep zigzag de-
scent below it to the plain, meeting his death probably within
300 yards of the gate. The Koreans say that some of his men
took up the body, but were shot by the Japanese while remov-
ing it, and that it was lost in the slaughter which ensued. A
neat obelisk, railed round, was erected by the Japanese at the
supposed spot, bearing on one face the inscription : —

Tso Pao-kuei, commander-in-chief of the Feng-tien division. Place of
death.

And on the other •

Killed while fighting with the Japanese troops at Phyong-yang.

A graceful tribute to their ablest foe.

General Tso's troops, demoralized by his death, sought
refuge everywhere from the deadly fire of the Japanese, a part
flying back to their forts within the wall, while many, prob-
ably blinded and desperate, rode along the pine woods which
densely cover the broken ground outside, by a path along a
wide dry moat, which, three weeks later, when Mr. Moffett
returned, was piled with the dead bodies of their horses.

In the bright moonlight night which followed that day, the
Japanese stormed and took by assault the three Chinese forts
on the three summits of the ridge, which were the key of tlie
position, enabling them to throw their shell into the Chinese
forts and camps within the wall. The beautiful pavilion at
the angle of the wall is much shattered, and big fragments of
shell are embedded in its pillars and richly carved woodwork.

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 317

So desperately hurried was the flight of the vanquished from
the last fort which held out, that they were mown down in
numbers as they ran down the steep hill, falling face foremost
with their outstretched hands clutching the earth.

All was then lost, and why that doomed army, numbering
then perhaps 12,000 men, did not surrender unconditionally, I
cannot imagine. During the night, abandoning guns and all war
material, the remains of Tso's brigade and all the infantry
and unwounded men passed through the deserted and silent
city, surged out of the Potong Mon, crossed a shallow stream,
and emerged upon a plain girdled by low hills, and intersected
by the Peking road, the eastern extremity being occupied by
some Chinese forts and breastworks. Tso's cavalry attempted
to cross the plain and gain the shelter of some low hills, while
great numbers of the infantry took to the Peking road.

The horrors of that night will never be accurately known.
The battle of Phyong-yang was lost and won when the forts
were taken. What remained was less of a battle than a mas-
sacre. Before the morning, this force, the flower of the Chi-
nese army as to drill and equipment, had perished, those who
escaped never reappearing as an organized body. It is esti-
mated that from 2,000 to 4,000 men were slain, with thou-
sands of horses and bulls, the cavalry being literally mown
down in hundreds, and lying, men and horses, heaped " in
mounds." For the Japanese had girdled the plain with a ring
of fire. Mr. Moffett, who was there three weeks later, de-
scribed the scene even then as one of '' indescribable horror."
Still, there were " mounds " of men and horses stiffened in the
death-agony, many having tried vainly to extricate themselves
from the pile above them. There were blackened corpses in
hundreds lying along the Peking road, ditches filled up with
bodies of men and animals, fields sprinkled with them, and
rifles, muskets, paper umbrellas, fans, coats, hats, swords
belts, scabbards, cartridge boxes, sleeves, and everything that
could be cast away in a desperate flight strewing the ground.

318 Korea and Her Neighbors

Numbers of the wounded crept into the deserted houses and
died there, some of the bodies showing indications of suicide
from agony, and throughout this mass of human relics which
lay blackening and festering in the hot sun, dogs, left behind
by their owners, were holding high carnival. Even in my
walks over the battlefield, though the grain of another year
had ripened upon it, I saw human skulls, spines with ribs,
spines with the pelvis attached, arms and hands, hats, belts,
and scabbards.

On a lofty knoll within the wall, the Japanese have erected
a fine monolith to the memory of the 168 men they lost.
They turned the temple of the God of War into a hospital,
and there, cela va sans dire, their wounded were admirably
treated, and in another building the Chinese wounded were
carefully attended to, though naturally not till many of them
had died of their wounds on the battlefield. A ghastly ret-
ribution followed the neglect to bury the Chinese dead, for
typhus fever broke out, and its ravages among the Japanese
troops may be partially estimated by the long lines of graves
in the military cemetery at Chemulpo.

Outside the wall, in beautifully broken ground, roughly
wooded with the Finns sinensis, there are still bullets in the
branches, many of which were splintered by the iron hail, and
the temple at the tomb of Kit-ze, the founder of Korean civ-
ilization, must have been the centre of a deadly fight, for its
woodwork is riddled with bullets and damaged by shell, and
on its floor are great dark stains, where, when the fight was
over, the Japanese wounded lay in pools of blood.

At some points, specially at the mud forts by the ferry, the
Chinese made a very determined stand for ten hours, so that
the Japanese troops wavered, and were only recovered by a
gallant dash made by General Oshima. Probably the battle
of Phyong-yang decided the fate of the campaign.

Mr. Yi found an old book in eighteen vols; for sale, which
gives a history of this city. Most Korean matters are lost in

"^^^^^^

«' V«»B

1^

;VIC

The Phyong-yang Battlefield 319

obscurity after one or two centuries, but the story of Phyong-
yang takes a bold backward leap and deals fearlessly with the
events of centuries b. c. Kit-ze, whose fine reputed tomb and
temples in the wood are still regarded with so much reverence
that a stone tablet on the road below warns equestrians to dis-
mount in passing so sacred a place, and who is said to have
emigrated from China in 1122 B.C., and to have founded a
dynasty which lasted for seven centuries, made Phyong-yang
his capital. The temple at his reputed grave, though full of
bullets, is in admirable repair, and its rich decorations have
lately been renovated, a phenomenon in Korea. Near the city
is the standard of land measurement which he introduced,
illustrated by ditches and paths cut, it is said, by himself.

The temple to the God of War at the foot of the hill is per-
haps the finest in Korea. Frescoes, as in the temple to the
same god outside the South Gate of Seoul, but on a far grander
scale, cover the walls of the corridors of one of the court-
yards, and the gigantic figures round the altar, with the sacri-
ficial utensils, hangings, and dresses, are costly and magnifi-
cent. Not far from this is a large and wealthy Buddhist
monastery.

CHAPTER XXVn

NORTHWARD HO !

FOR the northern journey simple preparations only were
needed, consisting of the purchase of candles and two
blankets for Im, in having two pheasants cooked, in dispens-
ing with one pony, leaving us the moderate allowance of two
baggage animals, and in depositing most of my money with
Mr. Moffett. For there were rumors of robbers on the road,
and Mr. Yi left his fine clothes and elegant travelling gear also
behind.

On a brilliant morning (and when are Korean mornings not
brilliant?), passing through the gate out of which General Tso
made his last sally, and down the steep declivity on which it
opens, we travelled for a time along the An Ju road, skirting
the base of the hill on which the Chinese cavalry made their
desperate attack on an intrenched position, and near the ruins
of two intrenched camps, where they fell in hundreds before
the merciless fire of the enemy, and where human bones were
still lying about. But where Death reaped that ghastly harvest
magnificent grain crops had recently been secured, and the
mellow sunlight shone on miles of stubble.

Shortly we turned off on a road untouched by the havoc of
war, and saw no more of the gaunt ruins or charred remains
of cottages. In that pleasant region ranges of hills with pines
on their lower slopes girdle valleys of rich stoneless alluvium,
producing abundantly cotton, tobacco, caster oil, wheat,
barley, peas, beans, and most especially, the red and white
millet. Wherever a lateral valley descends upon the one
through which the road passes, there is a village of thatched

320

Northward Hoi 321

houses, pretty enough at a distance and embowered in fruit
trees, while clumps of pines, oaks, elms, and zelkawas denote
the burial-places of its dead, who are the guardians of the only-
fine timber which is suffered to exist.

The hamlets along the road were cheerfully busy. Millet
was stacked in the village roadways, leaving only room for one
laden animal to pass at a time, and as all the threshing of rice
and grain is done with double flails also in the village street,
one actually rides over the threshed product. The red or
large millet is nearly as useful to the Korean as is the bamboo
to the Chinese. Its stalks furnish fuel, material for mats and
thick woven fences, and even for houses, for in Phyong-an Do
the walls are formed of bundles of millet stalks 8 feet high for
the uprights, across which single stalks are laid, the interstices
being filled up with mud.

After two days of somewhat monotonous prettiness, beyond
Shou-yang-yi the country became really beautiful. Some of
the larger valleys were specially attractive, with abundance of
fruit and other deciduous trees below the dark Pinus sinensis
on the hill slopes, and there were plenty of large villages with
a general look of prosperity, everything, clothing included,
being much cleaner than usual. There were fine views of
lofty dog-tooth peaks, and of serrated ranges running east and
west. Nearly every valley has its bright, rapid stream, on
which the hills descend on one side in abrupt and much
caverned limestone cliffs, the other side being level and fertile.
The people there, and doubtless everywhere, were taken up
entirely with their own concerns, the new system of taxation
under which a fixed tax in money is levied on the assessed
value of the land meeting with their approval. Events in
Seoul had no interest for them. The recent murder of the
Queen and the imprisonment of the King did not concern
them, as there were no effects of either on their circumstances.
After crossing the pass of Miriok Yang, 816 feet in altitude, in
a romantic region, we entered poorer country with stony soil,

322 Korea and Her Neighbors

often piled with large shingle by the violence of streams then
perfectly dry.

By misdirection, misunderstanding, or complexity or com-
plete illegibility of the track, we spent much of the day in
losing and retracing our way, scrambling up steep rock-ladders,
etc., and when we reached Kai-pang after dusk we were for
some time refused admission to the inn. The owner said he
could not take in any one travelling with so many 7napii. (four)
and a soldier. He was terrified. He said we should go away
in the morning without paying him, and should beat him when
he asked to be paid ! However, the mapu gave me such an
excellent character that at last he consented, and I had an ex-
cellent room, — that is, the walls and roof were cream-washed,
which gave it a look of cleanliness. The timid innkeeper was
old, and this brought out the fact that when a local migistrate
has aged parents, it is customary for him to invite to an enter-
tainment everybody in his district between the ages of 60 and
100, and it is usual for the old men to take their oldest
grandsons with them as testimonies to their old age. As every
guest has to be accompanied fittingly, the company often
numbers 200.

At Ka-chang and elsewhere the pigsties are much more
solid than the houses, being regular log cabins with substantial
roofs for the protection of their inmates from tigers, or in that
neighborhood from wolves (?). These pigs, of which every
country family in Korea possesses some, are of an absurdly
small black breed, a full-grown animal not weighing more
than 26 lbs.

During the two days' journey from the market-place of
Sian-chong, we passed the magistracies of Cha-san and Un-
san, ferrying the Tai-dong just beyond Cha-san, where it is a
fine stream 317 yards broad, and is said by the ferrymen to be
47 feet deep. All that region is well peopled and fertile.
There are no resident j(^//^-/^^7//j- in the province of Phyong-an.
Gold is obtained by a simple process all round the country,

Northward Ho! 323

specially at Keum san. At Wol-po, a prettily situated village,
and elsewhere, a quantity of the coarser descriptions of paper
is made. Paper and tobacco were the goods that were on the
move, bound for Phyong-yang.

Paper is used for a greater variety of purposes in Korea than
anywhere else, and its toughness and durability render it in-
valuable. The coarser sorts are made from old rags and paper,
the finer from the paper mulberry. Paper is the one article of
Korean manufacture which is exported in any quantity to
China, where it is used for some of the same purposes.

Oil paper about a sixth of an inch in thickness is pasted on
the floors instead of carpets or mats. It bears washing, and
takes a high polish from dry rubbing. In the Royal Palaces,
where two tints are used carefully, it resembles oak parquet.
It is also used for walls. A thinner quality is made into the
folding, conical hat-covers which every Korean carries in his
sleeve, and into waterproof cloaks, coats, and baggage covers.
A very thick kind of paper made of several thicknesses beaten
together is used for trunks, which are strong enough to hold
heavy articles. Lanterns, tobacco-pouches, and fans are made
of paper, and the Korean wooden latticed windows from the
palace to the hovel are '* glazed " with a thin, white, tough
variety, which is translucent. Much prized, however, were
my photographic glass plates when cleaned. Many a joyful
householder let one into his window, giving himself an op-
portunity of amusement and espionage denied to his neighbors.

The day's journey from Ka-chang to Tok Chhon is through
very attractive scenery with grand mountain views. After
crossing a low but severe pass, we came down upon a large
affluent of the Tai-dong, which for want of a name I designate
as the Ko-mop-so, flowing as a full- watered, green stream be-
tween lofty cliffs of much caverned limestone, fantastically
buttressed, and between hills which throw out rocky spurs,
terminating or thinning down into high limestone walls, re-
sembling those of ruinous fortifications.

324 Korea and Her Neighbors

Again losing the way and our time, a struggle over a rough
pass brought us in view of the Tai-dong, with the character-
istics of its mountain course, long rapids with glints of foam
and rocks, long reaches of deep, still, slow-gliding jagged
translucent green water broad and deep, making constant
abrupt turns, and by its volume suggesting great powers of
destructiveness when it is liberated from its mountain barriers.
In about a fortnight it would be frozen for the winter.
Diamond-flashing in the fine breeze, below noble cliffs and
cobalt mountains, across which cloud shadows were sailing in
indigo, under a vault of cloud-flecked blue, that view was one
of those dreams of beauty which become a possession for ever.

From that pass the road, if it can be called such, is shut in
with the Tai-dong for 30 //. In some places there is not room
even for the narrowest bridle track, and the ponies scramble
as they may over the rough boulders which margin the water,
and climb the worn, steep, and rocky steps, often as high as
their own knees, by which the break-neck track is taken over
the rocky spurs which descend on the river. It is one of the
worst pieces of road I ever encountered, and it was not won-
derful that we did not meet a single traveller, and that there
should be only about nine a year ! We made by our utmost
efforts only a short mile an hour, and it took us five hours of
this severe work to reach the wretched hamlet of Huok Kuri,
a few hovels dumped down among heaps of stones and great
boulders, some of which served as backs for the huts. Pov-
erty-stricken, filthy, squalid, the few inhabitants subsisted en-
tirely on red millet ! Poor Mr. Yi, who had had a wakeful
night owing to vermin, said woefully as he dismounted stiflly,
** Sleepy, tired, cold, hungry," — and there was nothing to eat,
and little for the ponies either, which may have been the
reason that they got up a desperate fight, of which they bore
the traces for some days.

The track continued shut in by the high mountains which
line the Tai-dong till within a mile of Tok Chhon, forcing the

Northward Ho! 325

ponies to climb worn rock-ladders, or to pick a perilous way
among sharp-pointed rocks. I had not thought that Korea
could produce anything so emphatic ! As the road occasion-
ally broke up in face of some apparently impassable spur, we
occasionally got into impassable places, and lost time so badly
that we were benighted when little more than halfway, but as
there were no inhabitants we pushed on as a matter of neces-
sity. When we got to better going the inapUy inspired by the
double terror of robbers and wild animals, hurried on the
ponies, yelling as they drove, and by the time we reached the
Tok Chhon ferry a young moon had risen, and the mountains
in shadow, and the great ferry-boat full of horses, men in
white, and bulls, in relief against the silvered water, made a
beautiful night scene. I sent on the ponies, and Im to pre-
pare my room, fully expecting comfort, as at Phyong-yang, for
though I could never find anybody who had been at Tok
Chhon, it was always spoken of as a sort of metropolis.

It is indeed a magistracy, with a remarkably ruinous yamen
and a market-place, and is the chief town of a very large
region. It is entered from the river by stepping-stones, through
abominable slush, by a long narrow street, from which we were
directed on and on till we came to a \^\At place , where the inns
of the town are. There in the moonlight a great masculine
crowd had collected, and in the middle of it were our juapUy
with the loads still on their ponies, raging at large, and Im
rushing hither and thither like a madman. For they had been
refused accommodation, and every door had been barred
against them on the ground that I was a foreigner ! They
said, truly or falsely, that no foreigner had ever profaned Tok
Chhon by his presence, that they lived in peace, and did not
want to be " implicated with a foreigner " (all foreigners being
Japanese). It is most disagreeable to force oneself in even the
slightest degree on any one, but I had been twelve hours in the
saddle, it was 8 p. m., there was snow on the ground, and it
was freezing hard ! The yard door of one inn was opened a

326 Korea and Her Neighbors

chink for a moment, our men rushed for it, but it was at once
barred, and we were all again left standing in the street, the
centre of a crowd which increased every moment.

Our men eventually forced open the door of one inn and
got their ponies in. Then the paper was torn off two doors,
and Im was visible against the light from within tearing about
like a black daemon. We had then stood like statues for two
hours with our feet in freezing slush, the great crowd preserv-
ing a ring round us, staring stolidly, but not showing any hos-
tility. At last Im appeared at an open door, waving my chair,
and we got into a high, dark lumber-room; but the crowd was
too quick for us, and came tumbling in behind us till the place
was full. Then the landlord closed the doors, but they were
smashed in, and he had no better luck when he weakly be-
sought the people to look at him and not at the stranger, for
his entreaty only produced an ebullition of Korean wit, by no
means complimentary. An official from the yame?i arrived
and inquired if I had any complaint to make, but I had none,
and he sat down and took a prolonged stare on his own ac-
count, not making any attempt to disperse tlie crowd.

So I sat facing the door, Mr. Yi not far off smoking endless
cigarettes, while Im battled for a room, after one he had se-
cured had its doors broken down by the crowd. I sat for two
hours longer in that cold, ruinous, miserable place, two front
and three back doorways filled up with men, the whole male
population of Tok Chhon, and, never moved a muscle or
showed any sign of dissatisfaction ! Some sat on the doorsill,
little men were on the shoulders of big ones, all, inside and
outside, clamoring at once.

The situation might have been serious had a European man
been with me, and the experiences of Mr. Campbell of the
Consular Service, at Kapsan might have been repeated. No
Englishman could have kept his temper in such circumstances
from 8 p. M. till midnight. He would certainly have knocked
somebody down, and then there would have been a fight. The

Northward Ho! 327

ill-bred curiosity tires but does not annoy me, though it ex-
ceeded all bounds that night. Fortunately for me, a Korean
gentleman is taught from his earliest boyhood that he must
never lose his temper, and that it is a degradation to him to
touch an inferior, therefore he must never strike a servant or
one of the lower orders.

At midnight, probably weary of our passivity, and anxious
for sleep, the inn people consented to give me a room in the
back-yard if I did not object to one "prepared for sacrifice,"
and containing the ancestral tablets. The crowd then filled
the back-yard, and attempted to pour into my room, when
Im's sorely-tried patience gave way for only the second time,
and he knocked people down right and left. This, and the
contents of a fire-bowl which was upset in the scrimmage,
helped to scatter the crowd, but it was there again at daylight,
attempting to enter every time Im opened the door !

The ''room prepared for sacrifice" in aspect was a small
barn, fearfully dirty and littered with rubbish, and bundles of
rags, rope, and old shoes were tucked away among the beams
and rafters. My camp-bed cut it exactly in half. In the in-
ner half there was a dusty table, and behind it on a black
stand a dusty black shrine, at the back of which was a four-
leaved screen covered with long strips of paper, on which were
poems in praise of the deceased. In front, dividing the room,
and falling from the roof to the floor, was a curtain made of
two widths of very dirty foreign calico. Among the poor, in-
stead of setting food before the ancestral shrine twice or thrice
daily during the three years of mourning for a parent, it is
only placed there twice a month. In a small white wooden
tablet within the shrine popular belief places the residence of
the third soul of the deceased, as I have mentioned before.

I spent two days at Tok Chhon. Properly speaking, the
Tai-dong is never navigable to that point, owing to many and
dangerous rapids, and any idea of the possibility of this highly
picturesqe stream becoming "a great commercial highway "

328 Korea and Her Neighbors

may be utterly dismissed. Small boats can ascend it at all
seasons to Mou-chin Tai, about 140 // lower down, and during
two summer months, when the water is high, a few with much
difficulty get up to Tok Chhon, and even a few // farther, and
at the same season rafts descend from the forests of the Yung-
won district, from 30 to 40 // higher; but owing to severe
rapids, shallows, and sandbanks which shift continually, the
river is not really navigable higher than Phyong-yang, and
all commercial theories built upon it are totally chimerical.
For 30 // above Tok Chhon the river scenery is far grander
than below, the perpendicular walls of limestone rock rising
from 800 to 1,000 feet, with lofty mountains above them, the
peaks of which, even so early as the end of November, were
crested with new-fallen snow. I had been assured in Phyong-
yang that boats could be hired at Tok Chhon, and I had
planned to descend the river ; but there are no boats, except
a few ferry scows, higher than Mou-chin Tai.

Tok Chhon and its district are lamentably poor. The
people said that the war had made the necessaries of life
dearer, and that they had only the same produce to barter or
buy with. The reforms which were being carried out farther
south had not reached that region, and *' squeezing" was still
carried on by the officials. Rice, the ordinary staff of Korean
life, is brought from An Ju, but is used only by the rich, i.e.
the officials. The poor live on large and small millet. Po-
tatoes and wheat are grown, but the soil is poor and stony. A
little trade, chiefly in dried fish and seaweed, is done with
Won-san. A few silk lenos and gauzes of very poor quality
are made, the industry having been introduced by the Chinese.
Piece goods are only a few cash dearer than at Phyong-yang.
Those displayed on the market-day were nearly all Japanese.
It was the dullest market I have seen. The pedlars carried
away nearly as much as they brought. The country is abso-
lutely denuded of wood. There are no deciduous trees, and
the region owes its few groves of dwarfed and distorted pines

Northward Ho! 329

to the horseshoe graves on the hillsides. A yaf?ien which
only hangs together from force of habit, a Confucian temple,
and a Buddhist temple on a height are the only noteworthy
buildings.

The district magistrate returned while I was in Tok Chhon,
and the people showed a degree of interest in the event. Run-
ners lined the river-bank by the ferry, blowing horns, forty
men in black gauze coats over their white ones, and a few
singing girls met his chair and ran with it to X\\q ya?fien, and a
few men looked on apathetically. A more squalid retinue
could not be imagined.

Some magistrates had a thousand of such retainers paid by
this impoverished country. In a single province, there were
at that time 44 district mandarins, with an average staff of
400 men each, whose sole duties were those of police and tax-
collecting, their food alone, at the rate of two dollars per
month, costing ^392,400 a year.^ This army of 17,600 men,
not receiving a ''living wage," ''squeezed" on its own ac-
count the peasant, who in Korea has neither rights nor privi-
leges, except that of being the ultimate sponge. As an illus-
tration of the methods of proceeding I give the case of a
village in a southern province. Telegraph poles were required,
and the Provincial Governor made a requisition of 100 cash
on every house. The local magistrate increased it to 200, and
his runners to 250, which was actually paid by the people, the
runners getting 50 cash, the magistrate 100, and the Governor
100, a portion of which sum was expended on the object for
which it was levied. An edict abolishing this attendance, and
reducing the salaries of magistrates, had recently been pro-
mulgated. At Tok Chhon, the ruin and decay of official
buildings, and the filth and squalor of the private dwellings,
could go no farther.

' My authority for this statement is Mr. W. K. Carles, formerly H.B.
M.'s Vice-Consul in Korea.

CHAPTER XXVIII

OVER THE AN-KIL YUNG PASS

FINDING the Tai-dong totally impracticable, and being
limited as to time by the approach of the closing of the
river below Phyong-yang by ice, I regretfully turned south-
wards, and journeyed Seoul-wards by another route, of much
interest, which touches here and there the right bank of the
Tai-dong.

As I sat amidst the dirt, squalor, rubbish, and odd and end-
isra of the inn yard before starting, surrounded by an
apathetic, dirty, vacant-looking, open-mouthed crowd steeped
in poverty, I felt Korea to be hopeless, helpless, pitiable,
piteous, a mere shuttlecock of certain great powers, and that
there is no hope for her population of twelve or fourteen mil-
lions, unless it is taken in hand by Russia, under whose rule,
giving security for the gains of industry as well as light taxa-
tion, I had seen Koreans in hundreds transformed into ener-
getic, thriving, peasant farmers in Eastern Siberia.

The road, which was said, and truly, to be a very bad one,
crosses a small plain, and passing under a roofed gateway be-
tween two hills which are scarred by remains of fortifications
running east and west, enters upon really fine scenery, which
becomes magnificent in about 30 //, at first a fertile mountain-
girdled basin, whose rim is spotted with large villages, and
then a narrowing valley with stony soil, and a sparse popula-
tion, walled in by savage mountains of emphatic forms, swing-
ing apart at times, and revealing loftier peaks and ranges then
glittering with new-fallen snow.

In crossing the plain at a point where the road was good, I

330

Over the An-kil Yung Pass 331

was remarking to Mr. Yi what a pleasant and prosperous
journey we had had, and hoping our good fortune might con-
tinue, when there was a sudden clash and flurry, I was nearly
kicked off my pony, and in a moment we were in the midst of
disaster. One baggage pony was on his back on his load,
pawing the air in the middle of a ploughed field, his mapu
helpless for the time, lamed by a kick above the knee, sobbing,
blood and tears running down his face ; the other baggage
animal, having divested himself of Im, was kicking off the
rest of his load ; and Im, who had been thrown from the top
of the pack, was sitting on the roadside, evidently in intense
pain— all the work of a moment. Mr. Yi called to me that
the soldier had broken his ankle, and it was a great relief
when he rose and walked towards me. Everything breakable
was broken except my photographic camera, which I did not
look at for two days for fear of what I might find !

Leaving the men to get the loads and ponies together, we
walked on to a hamlet so destitute as not to be able to provide
either wood or wadding for a splint ! I picked up a thick
faggot, however, which had been dropped from a load, and it
was thinned into being usable with a hatchet, the only tool
the village possessed, and after padding it with a pair of stock-
ings and making a six-yard bandage out of a cotton garment,
I put up Im's right arm, which was broken just above the
wrist, in splints, and made a sling out of one of the two towels
which the rats had left to me. I should have been glad to
know Korean enough to rate the gossiping mapii-, three men to
two horses, who allowed the accident to happen.

The animals always fight if they are left to themselves, and
loads and riders are nowhere. One day Mr. Yi had a bit of a
finger taken off in a fight, and if a strange brute had not
kicked my stirrup iron (which was bent by the blow) instead
of myself, I should have had a broken ankle. When we halted
at midday the villagers tried hard to induce Im to have his
arm *' needled" to 'Met out the bad blood," a most risky

332 Korea and Her Neighbors

surgical proceeding, which often destroys the usefuhiess of a
limb for life, and he was anxious for it, but yielded to persua-
sion.

Being delayed by tliis accident, it was late when we started
to cross the pass of An-kil Yung, regarded as " the most dan-
gerous in Korea," owing to its liability to sudden fogs and
violent storms, 3,346 feet in altitude, and said to be 30 //
long.

The infamous path traverses a wild rocky glen with an
impetuous torrent at its bottom, and only a few wretched
hamlets, in which the hovels are indistinguishable from the
millet and brushwood stacks, along its length of several miles.
Poverty, limiting the people to the barest necessaries of life,
is the lot of the peasant in that region, but I believe that his
dirty and squalid habits give an impression of want which does
not actually exist. I doubt much whether any Koreans are un-
able to provide themselves with two daily meals of millet, with
clothes sufficient for decency in summer and for warmth in
winter, and with fuel (grass, leaves, twigs, and weeds) enough
to keep their miserable rooms at a temperature of 70° and
more by means of the hot floor.

To the west the valley is absolutely closed in by a wall of
peaks. The bridle-path, a well-engineered road, when it
ascends the very steep ridge of the watershed in many zigzags,
rests for 100 feet, and descends the western side by seventy-
five turns. Except in Tibet, I never saw so apparently insur-
mountable an obstacle, but it does not present any real diffi-
culty. Tlie ascent took seventy minutes. Rain fell very
heavily, but the superb view to the northeast was scarcely ob-
scured. At the top, which is only 100 feet wide, there is a
celebrated shrine to the daemon of the past. To him all
travellers put up petitions for deliverance from the many
malignant spirits who are waiting to injure them, and for a
safe descent. The shrine contains many strips of paper in-
scribed with the names of those who have made special pay-

Over the An-kil Yung Pass 333

ments for special prayers, and a few wreaths and posies of
faded paper flowers. The woman who lives in the one hovel
on the pass nciakes a good living by receiving money from
travellers, who offer rice cakes and desire prayers. The
worship is nearly all done by proxy, and the rice cakes do
duty any number of times.

Besides the shrine and a one-rooomed hovel, there are some
open sheds made of millet stalks to give shelter during storms.
The An-kil Yung pass is blocked by snow for three months of
the year, but at other times is much used in spite of its great
height. Excellent potatoes are grown on the mountain slopes
at an altitude exceeding 3,000 feet, and round Tok Chhon
they are largely cultivated and enter into the diet of the peo-
ple, never having had the disease.

Darkness came on prematurely with the heavy rain, and we
asked the shrine-keeper to give us shelter for the night, but she
said that to take in six men and a foreign woman was impos-
sible, as she had only one room. But it was equally impos-
sible for us to descend the pass in the darkness with tired
ponies, and after half an hour's altercation the matter was ar-
ranged, Im, who retained his wits, securing for me a degree
of privacy by hanging some heavy mats from a beam, giving
me, I am sure, the lion's share of the apartment. Really the
accommodation was not much worse than usual, but though
the mercury fell to the freezing point, the hot floor kept the
inside temperature up to 83°, and the dread of tigers on the
part of my hostess forbade my having even a chink of the door
open !

The rain cleared off in time for the last sunset gleam on the
distant mountains, which, when darkness fell on the pass,
burned fiery red against a strip of pale green sky, taking on
afterwards one by one the ashy look of death as the light died
off from their snows. All about An-kil Yung the mountains
are wooded to their summits with deciduous trees, the ubiqui-
tous Pimis sinensis being rare ; but to the northward in the

334 Korea and Her Neighbors

direction of Paik-tu San the character of the scenery changes,
and peaks and precipices of naked rock, and lofty mountain
monoliths, with snow-crowned ranges beyond, form by far the
grandest view that I saw in this land of hill and valley.

Then Im had to be attended to, and though I was very
anxious about him, I could not be blind to the picturesqueness
of the scene in the hovel, Mr. Yi sitting in my chair holding
the candle, the soldier, with his face puckered with pain,
squatting on the floor with his swollen arm lying on a writing
board on my lap, and no room to move. I failed there as
elsewhere to get a better piece of wood for the splint, which
was too short, and I could only get wadding for padding it by
taking some out of Im's sleeve, and all the time and after-
wards I was very anxious for fear that I had put the bandage
on too tightly or too loosely, and that my want of experience
would give the poor fellow a useless right arm. He was in
severe pain all that night, but he was very plucky about it,
made no fuss, and never allowed me to suffer in the slightest
degree from his accident. Indeed, he was even more attentive
than before. He said to Mr. Yi, *' The foreign woman looked
so sorry, and touched my arm as if I had been one of her own
people, I shall do my best " — and so he did. I had indulged
in a long perspective of pheasant curries, and I must confess
that when the prospect faded I felt a little dismal. To a
traveller who carries no " foreign food," it makes a great dif-
ference to get a nice, hot, stimulating dish (even though it is
served in the pot it is cooked in) after a ten hours' cold ride.
To my surprise, I was never without curry for dinner, and
though before the accident I had only cold rice for tiffin, after
it I was never without something hot.

The descent of An-kil Yung is very grand. The road leads
into a wide valley with a fine stream, one side of which looks
as if the mountains had dumped down all their available
stones upon it, while the other is rich alluvial soil. Gold
washing is carried on to a great extent along this stream,

Over the An-kil Yung Pass 335

which is a tributary of the Tai-dong, and some of the work-
ings show more care and method than usual, being pits neatly
lined with stone in their upper parts. Eighty cents per day is
the average earning of a gold-seeker there. This valley ter-
minates in pretty, broken country, with fine mountain views,
and picturesque cliffs along the river, on which the dark blue
gloom of pines was lighted by the fading scarlet of the maple,
and crimson streaks of the Ampelopsis Veitchii brightened
the russet into which the countless trailers which draped the
rocks had passed. The increased fertility of the soil was de-
noted by the number of villages and hamlets on the road, and
foot passengers in twos and threes gave something of life and
movement. But it was remarkable that so soon after the har-
vest, and when the roads were in their best condition, there
were no goods in transit except such local productions as paper
and tobacco — no strings of porters or ponies carrying goods
into the interior from Phyong-yang, no evidence of trade but
that given by the pedlars going the round of the market-places.
Along that road and elsewhere near the villages there are
tall poles branching at the top into a V, which are erected in
the belief that they will guard the inhabitants from cholera
and other pestilences. On that day's journey, at a crossroad,
a small log with several holes like those of a mouse-trap, one
of them plugged doubly with bungs of wood, was lying on the
path, and the mapu were careful to step over it and lead their
ponies over it, though it might easily have been avoided. Into
the bunged hole the mii-tang or sorceress by her arts had in-
veigled a daemon which was causing sickness in a family, and
had corked him up ! It is proper for passers-by to step over
the log. At nightfall it is buried. That afternoon's ride was
through extremely attractive country — small valley basins of
rich stoneless soil, with brown hamlets nestling round them in
calm, pine-sheltered folds of hills, which though not high are
shapely, and were etherealized into purple beauty by the sink-
ing sun, which turned the lake-like expanse of the Tai-dong at

33^ Korea and Her Neighbors

Mou-chin Tai, the beautifully situated halting-place for the
night, into a sheet of gold.

With a splendid climate, an abundant, but not superabun-
dant, rainfall, a fertile soil, a measure of freedom from civil
war and robber bands, the Koreans ought to be a happy and
fairly prosperous people. If '' squeezing," j^a»;^;^ runners and
their exactions, and certain malign practices of officials can be
put down with a strong hand, and the land tax is fairly levied
and collected, and law becomes an agent for protection rather
than an instrument of injustice, I see no reason why the
Korean peasant should not be as happy and industrious as the
Japanese peasant. But these are great " ifs " ! Security for
the gains of industry, from whatever quarter it comes, will, I
believe, transform the limp, apathetic native. Such ameliora-
tions as have been made are owed to Japan, but she had not a
free hand, and she was too inexperienced in the role which
she undertook (and I believe honestly) to play, to produce a
harmonious working scheme of reform. Besides, the men
through whom any such scheme must be carried out are nearly
universally corrupt both by tradition and habit. Reform was
jerky and piecemeal, and Japan irritated the people by med-
dlesomeness in small matters and suggested interferences with
national habits, giving the impression, which I found prevail-
ing everywhere, that her object is to denationalize the Koreans
for purposes of her own.

Travellers are much impressed with the laziness of the Ko-
reans, but after seeing their energy and industry in Russian
Manchuria, their thrift, and the abundant and comfortable
furnishings of their houses, I greatly doubt whether it is to be
regarded as a matter of temperament. Every man in Korea
knows that poverty is his best security, and that anything he
possesses beyond that which provides himself and his family
with food and clothing is certain to be taken from him by vo-
racious and corrupt officials. It is only when the exactions of
officials become absolutely intolerable and encroach upon his

Over the An-kil Yung Pass 337

means of providing the necessaries of life that he resorts to
the only method of redress in his power, which has a sort of
counterpart in China. This consists in driving out, and occa-
sionally in killing, the obnoxious and intolerable magistrate,
or, as in a case Vv^hich lately gained much notoriety, roasting
his favorite secretary on a wood pile. The popular outburst,
though under unusual provocation it may culminate in deeds
of regrettable violence, is usually founded on right, and is an
effective protest.

Among the modes of squeezing are forced labor, doubling
or trebling the amount of a legitimate tax, exacting bribes in
cases of litigation, forced loans, etc. If a man is reported to
have saved a little money, an official asks for the loan of it.
If it is granted, the lender frequently never sees principal or
interest ; if it is refused, he is arrested, thrown into prison on
some charge invented for his destruction, and beaten until
either he or his relations for him produce the sum demanded.
To such an extent are these demands carried, that in Northern
Korea, where the winters are fairly severe, the peasants, when
the harvest has left them with a few thousand cash^ put them
in a hole in the ground, and pour water into it, the frozen
mass which results then being earthed over, when it is fairly
safe both from officials and thieves.

CHAPTER XXIX

SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMEN

MOU-CHIN TAI is a beautifully situated village, and has
something of a look of comfort. Up to that point
small boats can come up at all seasons, but there is almost no
trade. The Tai-dong expands into a broad sheet of water, on
which the hills descend abruptly. There is a ferry, and we
drove our ponies into the ferryboat and yelled for the ferry-
man. After a time he appeared on the top of the bank, but
absolutely declined to take us over ''for any money." He
would have "nothing so do with a foreigner," he said, and
he would not be " implicated with a Japanese " ! So we put
ourselves across, and the mapii were so angry that they threw
his poles into the river.

Passing through very pretty country, and twice crossing the
Tai-dong, we halted at the town of Sun-chhon, a magistracy
with a deplorably ruinous j^;;z<f/z. All these official buildings
have seen better days. Their courts are spacious, and the
double-roofed gateways, with their drum towers, as well as the
central hall of the yamen, still retain a certain look of stateli-
ness, though paint, lacquer, and gilding have long ago disap-
peared from the elaborately arranged beams and carved wood
of the roofs, and the fretwork screening the interiors is always
shabby and broken.

About the Sun-chhon yameUy and all others, there are crowds
of *' runners," writers, soldiers in coarse ragged uniforms, young
men of \\\t yang-ban class in spotless white garments, lounging,
or walking with the swinging gait befitting their position, while
the decayed and forlorn rooms in the courtyard are filled with

338

Social Position of Women 339

petty officials, smoking long pipes and playing cards. To judge
from the crowds of attendants, the walking hither and thither,
the hurrying in various directions with manuscripts, and the
din of drums and fifes when the great gate is opened and closed,
one would think that nothing less than the business of an em-
pire was transacted within the ruinous portals.

Soldiers, writers, yamen runners, and men of the yang-ban
and literary classes combined with the loafers of the town to
compose a crowd which by its buzzing and shouting, and tear-
ing off the paper from my latticed door, gave me a fatiguing
and hideous two hours, a Korean crowd being only ?/;zbearable
when it is led by men of the literary class, who, as in China,
indulge in every sort of vulgar impertinence. Eventually I
was smuggled into the women's apartments, where I was vic-
timized in other ways by insatiable curiosity.

The women of the lower classes in Korea are ill-bred and
unmannerly, far removed from the gracefulness of the same
class in Japan or the reticence and kindliness of the Chinese
peasant women. Their clothing is extremely dirty, as if the
men had a monopoly of their ceaseless laundry work, which
everywhere goes on far into the night. Every brookside has
its laundresses squatting on flat stones, dipping the soiled clothes
in the water, laying them on flat stones in tightly rolled bundles
and beating them with flat paddles, a previous process consist-
ing of steeping them in a ley made of wood ashes. Bleached
under the brilliant sun and very slightly glazed with rice starch,
after being beaten for a length of time with short quick taps on
a wooden roller with club-shaped ''laundry sticks," common
white cotton looks like dull white satin, and has a dazzling
whiteness which always reminds me of St. Mark's words con-
cerning the raiment at the Transfiguration, "so as no fuller on
earth can white them." This wearing of white clothes, and
especially of white wadded clothes in winter, entails very severe
and incessant labor on the women. The coats have to be un-
picked and put together again each time that they are washed.

340 Korea and Her Neighbors

and though some of the long seams are often joined with paste,
there is till much sewing to be done.

Besides this the Korean peasant woman makes all the cloth-
ing of the household, does all the cooking, husks and cleans
rice with a heavy pestle and mortar, carries heavy loads to
market on her head, draws water, in remote districts works in
the fields, rises early and takes rest late, spins and weaves, and
as a rule has many children, who are not weaned till the age
of three.

The peasant woman may be said to have no pleasures. She
is nothing but a drudge, till she can transfer some of the
drudgery to her daughter-in-law. At thirty she looks fifty,
and at forty is frequently toothless. Even the love of personal
adornment fades out of her life at a very early age. Beyond
the daily routine of life it is probable that her thoughts never
stray except to the daemons, who are supposed to people earth
and air, and whom it is her special duty to propitiate.

It is really difficult to form a general estimate of the position
of women in Korea. Absolute seclusion is the inflexible rule
among the upper classes. The ladies have their own court-
yards and apartments, towards which no windows from the
men's apartments must look. No allusion must be made by a
visitor to the females of the household. Inquiries after their
health would be a gross breach of etiquette, and politeness re-
quires that they should not be supposed to exist. Women do
not receive any intellectual training, and in every class are re-
garded as beings of a very inferior order. Nature having in
the estimation of the Korean man, who holds a sort of dual
philosophy, marked woman as his inferior, the Youth's
Primer^ Historical Sinnmaries, and the Little Learning im-
press this view upon him in the schools, and as he begins to
mix with men this estimate of women receives daily corrobora-
tion.

The seclusion of women was introduced five centuries ago
by the present dynasty, in a time of great social corruption,

Social Position of Women 341

for the protection of the family, and has probably been con-
tinued, not, as a Korean frankly told Mr. Heber Jones, be-
cause men distrust their wives, but because they distrust each
other, and with good reason, for the immorality of the cities
and of the upper classes almost exceeds belief. Thus all young
women, and all older women except those of the lowest class,
are secluded within the inner courts of the houses by a custom
which has more than the force of law. To go out suitably
concealed at night, or on occasions when it is necessary to
travel or to make a visit, in a rigidly closed chair, are the only
"outings" of a Korean woman of the middle and upper
classes, and the low-class woman only goes out for purposes of
work.

The murdered Queen told me, in allusion to my own Korean
journeys, that she knew nothing of Korea, or even of the cap-
ital, except on the route of the Kiir-dong.

Daughters have been put to death by their fathers, wives by
their husbands, and women have even committed suicide, ac-
cording to Dallet, when strange men, whether by accident or de-
sign, have even touched their hands, and quite lately a serving-
woman gave as her reason for remissness in attempting to save
her mistress, who perished in a fire, that in the confusion a
man had touched the lady, making her not worth saving !

The law may not enter the women's apartments. A noble
hiding himself in his wife's rooms cannot be seized for any
crime except that of rebellion. A man wishing to repair his
roof must notify his neighbors, lest by any chance he should
see any of their women. After the age of seven, boys and
girls part company, and the girls are rigidly secluded, seeing
none of the male sex except their fathers and brothers until
the date of marriage, after which they can only see their own
and their husband's near male relations. Girl children, even
among the very poor, are so successfully hidden away, that in
somewhat extensive Korean journeys I never saw one girl who
looked above the age of six, except hanging listlessly about in

34^ Korea and Her Neighbors

the women's rooms, and the brightness which girl life contrib-
utes to social existence is unknown in the country.

But I am far from saying that the women fret and groan
under this system, or crave for the freedom which European
women enjoy. Seclusion is the custom of centuries. Their
idea of liberty is peril, and I quite believe that they think that
they are closely guarded because they are valuable chattels.
One intelligent woman, when I pressed her hard to say what
they thought of our customs in the matter, replied, '' We think
that your husbands don't care for you very much " !

Concubinage is a recognized institution, but not a respected
one. The wife or mother of a man not infrequently selects
the cuncubine, who in many cases is looked upon by the wife
as a proper appendage of her husband's means or position,
much as a carriage or a butler might be with us. The off-
spring in these cases are under a serious social stigma, and
until lately have been excluded from some desirable positions.
Legally the Korean is a strict monogamist, and even when a
widower marries again, and there are children by the second
marriage, those of the first wife retain special rights.

There are no native schools for girls, and though women of
the upper classes learn to read the native script, the number
of Korean women who can read is estimated at two in a thou-
sand. It appears that a philosophy largely imported from
China, superstitions regarding daemons, the education of men,
illiteracy, a minimum of legal rights, and inexorable custom
have combined to give woman as low a status in civilized
Korea as in any of the barbarous countries in the world. Yet
there is no doubt that the Korean woman, in addition to
being a born intrigante^ exercises a certain direct influence,
especially as mother and mother-in-law, and in the arrange-
ment of marriages.

Her rights are few, and depend on custom rather than law.
She now possesses the right of remarriage, and that of remain-
ing unmarried till she is sixteen, and she can refuse permission

Social Position of Women 343

to her husband for his concubines to occupy the same house
with herself. She is powerless to divorce her husband, con-
jugal fidelity, typified by the goose, the symbolic figure at a
wedding, being a feminine virtue solely. Her husband may
cast her off for seven reasons — incurable disease, theft, child-
lessness, infidelity, jealousy, incompatibility with her parents-
in-law, and a quarrelsome disposition. She may be sent back
to her father's house for any one of these causes. It is be-
lieved, however, that desertion is far more frequent than
divorce. By custom rather than law she has certain recog-
nized rights, as to the control of children, redress in case of
damage, etc. Domestic happiness is a thing she does not look
for. The Korean has a house, but no home. The husband
has his life apart; common ties of friendship and external in-
terest are not known. His pleasure is taken in company with
male acquaintances and gesang ; and the marriage relationship
is briefly summarized in the remark of a Korean gentleman in
conversation with me on the subject, ** We marry our wives,
but we love our concubines."

CHAPTER XXX

EXORCISTS AND DANCING WOMEN

AT Cha san, a magistracy, we rejoined the road from which
we had diverged on the northward journey. It is a
quiet, decayed place, though in a good agricultural country.
As I had been there before, the edge of curiosity was blunted,
and there was no mobbing. The people gave a distressing ac-
count of their sufferings from the Chinese soldiers, who robbed
them unscrupulously, took what they wanted without paying,
and maltreated the women. The Koreans deserted, through
fright, the adjacent ferry village of Ou-Chin-gang, where we
previously crossed the Tai-dong, and it was held by 53 Chi-
nese, being an important post. Two Japanese scouts appeared
on the other side of the river, fired, and the Chinese detach-
ment broke and fled ! At Cha san, as elsewhere, the people
expressed intense hatred of the Japanese, going so far as to say
that they would not leave one of them alive ; but, as in all
other places, they bore unwilling testimony to the good con-
duct of the soldiers, and the regularity with which the com-
missariat paid for supplies.

The Japanese detachments were being withdrawn from the
posts along that road, and we passed several well-equipped de-
tachments, always preceded by bulls loaded with red blankets.
The men were dressed in heavy gray ulsters with deep fur-
lined collars, and had very thick felt gloves. They marched
as if on parade, and their officers were remarkable for their
smartness. When they halted for dinner, they found every-
thing ready, and had nothing to do but stack their arms and
eat ! The peasant women went on with their avocations as

344

Exorcists and Dancing Women 345

usual. In that district and in the region about Tok Chhon,
the women seclude themselves in monstrous hats like our
wicker garden sentry-boxes, but without bottoms. These ex-
traordinary coverings are 7 feet long, 5 broad, and 3 deep,
and shroud the figure from head to foot. Heavy rain fell
during the night, and though the following day was beautiful,
the road was a deep quagmire, so infamously bad that when
only two and a half hours from Phyong-yang we had to stop
at the wayside inn of An-chin-Miriok, where I slept in a gran-
ary only screened from the stable by a bamboo mat, and had
the benefit of the squealing and vindictive sounds which ac-
companied numerous abortive fights. If possible, the next
day exceeded its predecessors in beauty, and though the draw-
backs of Korean travelling are many, this journey had been so
bright and so singularly prosperous, except for Im's accident,
which, however, brought out some of the best points of Korean
character, that I was even sorry to leave the miserable little
hostelry and conclude the expedition, and part with ihe^napUy
who throughout had behaved extremely well. The next morn-
ing, crossing the battlefield once more and passing through
the desolations which war had wrought, I reached my old,
cold, but comparatively comfortable quarters at Phyong-yang,
where I remained for six days.

While the river remained open, a small Korean steamer of
uncertain habits, the Hariong, plied nominally between
Phyong-yang and Chemulpo, but actually ran from Po-san, a
point about 60 // lower down the Tai-dong, which above it is
too shallow and full of sandbanks for vessels of any draught,
necessitating the transhipment of all goods not brought up by
junks of small tonnage. There was, however, no telegraph
between Po-san and Phyong-yang, no one knew when the
steamer arrived except by cargo coming up the river, and she
only remained a few hours ; so that my visit to Phyong-yang
was agitated by the fear of losing her, and having to make a
long land journey when time was precious. There was no

34^ Korea and Her Neighbors

Korean post, and the Japanese military post and telegraph of-
fice absolutely refused to carry messages or letters for civilians.
Wild rumors, of which there were a goodly crop every hour,
were the substitute for news.

A subject of special interest and inquiry at Phyong-yang
was mission work as carried on by American missionaries. At
Seoul it is far more difficult to get into touch with it, as, being
older, it has naturally more of religious conventionality. But
I will take this opportunity of saying that longer and more in-
timate acquaintance only confirmed the high opinion I early
formed of the large body of missionaries in Seoul, of their
earnestness and devotion to their work, of the energetic, hope-
ful, and patient spirit in which it is carried on, of the harmony
prevailing among the different denominations, and the cordial
and sympathetic feeling towards the Koreans. The interest of
many of the missionaries in Korean history, folklore, and cus-
toms, as evidenced by the pages of the valuable monthly, the
Korean Repository^ is also very admirable, and a traveller in
Korea must apply to them for information vainly sought else-
where.

Christian missions were unsuccessful in Phyong-yang. It
was a very rich and very immoral city. More than once it
turned out some of the missionaries, and rejected Christianity
with much hostility. Strong antagonism prevailed, the city
was thronged with gesang, courtesans, and sorcerers, and was
notorious for its wealth and infamy. The Methodist Mission
was broken up for a time, and in six years the Presbyterians
only numbered 28 converts. Then came the war, the destruc-
tion of Phyong-yang, its desertion by its inhabitants, the ruin
of its trade, the reduction of its population from 60,000 or
70,000 to 15,000, and the flight of the few Christians.

Since the war there had been a very great change. There
had been 28 baptisms, and some of the most notorious evil
livers among the middle classes, men shunned by other men
for their exceeding wickedness, were leading pure and right-

Exorcists and Dancing Women 347

eous lives. There were 140 catechumens under instruction,
and subject to a long period of probation before receiving bap-
tism, and the temporary church, though enlarged during my
absence, was so overcrowded that many of the worshippers
were compelled to remain outside. The offertories were lib-
eral.^ In the dilapidated extra-mural premises occupied by
the missionaries, thirty men were living for twenty-one days,
two from each of fifteen villages, all convinced of the truth of
Christianity, and earnestly receiving instruction in Christian
fact and doctrine. They were studying for six hours daily
with teachers, and for a far longer time amongst themselves,
and had meetings for prayer, singing, and informal talk each
evening. I attended three of these, and as Mr. Moffett inter-
preted for me, I was placed in touch with much of what was
unusual and interesting, and learned more of missions in their
earlier stage than anywhere else.

Besides the thirty men from the villages, the Christians and
catechumens from the city crowded the room and doorways.
Two missionaries sat on the floor at one end of the room with
a kerosene lamp mounted securely on two wooden pillows in
front of them — then there were a few candles on the floor,
centres of closely-packed groups. Hymns were howled in
many keys to familiar tunes, several Koreans prayed, bowing
their foreheads to the earth in reverence, after which some
gave accounts of how the Gospel reached their villages,
chiefly through visits from the few Phyong-yang Christians,
who were ''scattered abroad," and then two men, who seemed

' The Seoul Christian Nexvs, a paper recently started, gave its readers
an account of the Indian famine, with the result that the Christians in the
magistracy of Chang-yang raised among themselves ^84 for the sufferers
in a land they had hardly heard of, some of the women sending their solid
silver rings to he turned into cash. In Seoul the native Presbyterian
churches gave ^60 to the same fund, of wliich ^20 were collected by a
new congregation organized entirely by Koreans. I am under the im-
pression that the liberality of the Korean Christians in proportion to their
means far exceeds our own.

348 Korea and Her Neighbors

very eloquent as well as fluent, and riveted the attention of all,
gave narratives of two other men who they believed were pos-
sessed with devils, and said the devils had been driven out a
few months previously by united prayer, and that the ''foul
spirits" were adjured in the name of Jesus to come out, and
that the men trembled and turned cold as the devils left them,
never to return, and that both became Christians, along with
many who saw them.

A good many men came from distant villages one afternoon
to ask for Christian teaching, and in the evening one after
another got up and told how a refugee from Phyong-yang had
come to his village and had told them that they were both
wicked and foolish to worship daemons, and that they were
wrongdoers, and that there is a Lord of Heaven who judges
wrongdoing, but that He is as loving as any father, and that
they did not know what to think, but that in some places
twenty and more were meeting daily to worship "the High-
est," and that many of the women had buried the daemon
fetishes, and that they wanted some one to go and teach them
how to worship the true God.

A young man told how his father, nearly eighty years old,
had met Mr. Moffett by the roadside, and hearing from him
"some good things," had gone home saying he had heard
"good news," " great news," and had got "the Books," and
that he had become a Christian, and lived a good life, and
had called his neighbors together to hear "the news," and
would not rest till his son had come to be taught in the " good
news," and take back a teacher. An elderly man, who had
made a good living by sorcery, came and gave Mr. Moffett
the instruments of his trade, saying he " had served devils all
his life, but now he knew that they were wicked spirits, and
he was serving the true God."

On the same afternoon four requests for Christian teaching
came to the missionaries, each signed by from fifteen to forty
men. At all these evening meetings the room was crammed

Exorcists and Dancing Women 349

within and without by men, reverent and earnest in manner,
some of whom had been shunned for their wickedness even in
a city " the smoke of which " in her pahny days was said '* to
go up like the smoke of Sodom," but who, transformed by a
power outside themselves, were then leading exemplary lives.
There were groups in the dark, groups round the candles on
the floor, groups in the doorways, and every face was aglow
except that of poor, bewildered Im. One old man, with his
forehead in the dust, prayed like a child that, as the letter
bearing to New York an earnest request for more teachers was
on its way, '' the wind and sea might waft it favorably," and
that when it was read the eyes of the foreigners^ might be
opened ''to see the sore need of people in a land where no
one knows anything, and where all believe in devils, and are
dying in the dark."

As I looked upon those lighted faces, wearing an expression
strongly contrasting with the dull, dazed look of apathy which
is characteristic of the Korean, it was impossible not to recog-
nize that it was the teaching of the Apostolic doctrines of sin,
judgment to come, and divine love which had brought about
such results, all the more remarkable because, according to the
missionaries, a large majority of those who had renounced
daemon worship, and were living in the fear of the true God,
had been attracted to Cliristianity in the first instance by the
hope of gain ! This, and almost unvarying testimony to the
same effect, confirm me in the opinion that when people talk
of ''nations craving for the Gospel," ''stretching out plead-
ing hands for it," or " athirst for God," or "longing for the
living waters," they are using words which in that connection
have no meaning. That there are " seekers after righteous-
ness " here and there I do not doubt, but I believe that the
one "craving" of the far East is for money— that "unrest"
is only in the east a synonym for poverty, and that the spiritual
instincts have yet to be created.

1 The American Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.

350 Korea and Her Neighbors

On the Sunday I went with Dr. Scranton of Seoul to the
first regular service ever held for women in Phyong-yang.
There were a number present, all daemon-worshippers, some
of them attracted by the sight of a '' foreign woman." It was
impossible to have a formal service with people who had not the
most elementary ideas of God, of prayer, of moral evil, and of
good. It was not possible to secure their attention. They
were destitute of religious ideas. An elderly matron, who
acted as a sort of spokeswoman said, "They thought perhaps
God is a big daemon, and He might help them to get back
their lost goods." That service was "mission work" in its
earliest stage.

On returning from a service in the afternoon where there
were crowds of bright intelligent-looking worshippers, we
came upon one of the most important ceremonies connected
with the popular belief in daemons — the exorcism of an evil
spirit which was supposed to be the cause of a severe illness.
Never by night or day on my two visits to Phyong-yang had I
been out of hearing of the roll of the sorcerer's drum, with
the loud vibratory clash of cymbals as an intermittent accom-
paniment. Such sounds attracted us to the place of exorcism.

In a hovel with an open door a man lay very ill. The space
in front was matted and enclosed by low screens, within which
were Korean tables loaded with rice cakes, boiled rice, stewed
chicken, sprouted beans and other delicacies. In this open
space squatted three old women, two of whom beat large
drums, shaped like hour-glasses, while the third clashed large
cymbals. Facing them was the ;;///-/^;/^ or sorceress, dressed
in rose-pink silk, with a buff gauze robe, with its sleeves trail-
ing much on the ground, over it. Pieces of paper resembling
the Shinto ^^//(?/ decorated her hair, and a curious cap of buff
gauze with red patches upon it, completed the not inelegant
costume. She carried a fan, but it was only used occasionally
in one of the dances. She carried over her left shoulder a stick,
painted with bands of bright colors, from which hung a gong

Exorcists and Dancing Women 351

which she beat with a similar stick, executing at the same time
a slow rhythmic movement accompanied by a chant. From
time to time one of the ancient drummers gathered on one
plate pieces from all the others and scattered them to the four
winds for the spirits to eat, invoking them, saying, ''Do not
trouble this house any more, and we will again appease you by
offerings."

The mu-tang is, of course, according to the belief of those
who seek her services, possessed by a powerful daemon, and
by means of her incantations might induce this daemon to
evict the one which was causing the sickness by aiding her
exorcisms, but where the latter is particularly obstinate, she
may require larger fees and more offerings in order that she
may use incantations for bringing to her aid a yet more power-
ful daemon than her own. The exorcism lasted fourteen hours,
until four the next morning, when the patient began to recover.
A crowd, chiefly composed of women and children, stood round
the fence, the children imbibing devilry from their infancy.

I was not at a regular inn in Phyong-yang but at a broker's
house, with a yard to myself nominally, but which was by no
means private. Im generally, and not roughly, requested the
people to "move on," but he made two exceptions, one being
in favor of a madwoman of superior appearance and apparel
who haunted me on my second visit, hanging about the open
front of my room, and following me to the mission-house and
elsewhere. She said that I was her grandmother and that she
must go with me everywhere, and, like many mad people, she
had an important and mysterious communication to make
which for obvious reasons never reached me. She was the
concubine of a late governor of the city, and not having
escaped before its capture, went mad from horror at seeing the
Chinese spitted on the bayonets of the Japanese. She carried
a long bodkin, and went through distressing pantomimes of
running people through with it !

The other exception was in favor of gesang, upon whose

352 Korea and Her Neighbors

presence Im looked quite approvingly, and evidently thought I
did.

Phyong-yang has always been famous for the beauty and
accomplishments of its gesang, singing and dancing girls,
resembling in many respects the geishas of Japan, but cor-
rectly speaking they mostly belong to the Government, and
are supported by the Korean Treasury. At the time of my
two first sojourns in Seoul, about seventy of them were at-
tached to the Royal Palace. They were under the control of
the same Government department as that with which the official
musicians are connected.

As a poor man gifted with many sons, for whom he cannot
provide, sometimes presents one to the government as a
eunuch, so he may give a girl to be a gesaiig. The gesang
are trained from a very early age in such accomplishments as
other Korean women lack, and which will ensure their
attractiveness, such as playing on various musical instruments,
singing, dancing, reading, reciting, writing, and fancy work.
As their destiny is to make time pass agreeably for men of the
upper classes, this amount of education is essential, though a
Korean does not care how blank and undeveloped the mind of
his wife is. The gesang are always elegantly dressed, as they
were when they came to see me, even through the mud of the
Phyong-yang streets, and as they have not known seclusion,
their manners with both sexes have a graceful ease. Their
dancing, like that of most Oriental countries, consists chiefly
of posturing, and is said by those foreigners who have seen it,
to be perfectly free from impropriety.

Dr. Allen, Secretary to the U.S. Legation at Seoul, in a
paper in the Korean Repository for 1886, describes among
the dances which specially interest foreigners at the entertain-
ments at the Royal Palace one known as the " Lotus Dance."
In this, he writes, "A tub is brought in containing a large
lotus flower just ready to burst open. Two imitation storks
then come in, each one being a man very cleverly disguised.

Exorcists and Dancing Women 353

These birds flap their wings, snap their beaks, and dance round
in admiration of the beautiful bud which tliey evidently intend
to pluck as soon as they have enjoyed it sufficiently in antic-
ipation. Their movements all this time are very graceful,
and they come closer and closer to the flower keeping time to
the soft music. At last the proper time arrives, the flower is
plucked, when, as the pink petals fall back, out steps a little
gesang to the evident amazement of the birds, and to the in-
tense delight of the younger spectators."

The Sword and Dragon dances are also extremely popular,
and on great occasions the performance is never complete with-
out ** Throwing the Ball," which consists in a series of grace-
ful arm movements before a painted arch, after which the
gesang march in procession before the King, and the success-
ful dancers receive presents.

Though the most beautiful and attractive gesang come from
Phyong-yang, they are found throughout the country. From
the King down to the lowest official who can afford the luxury,
the presence of gesang is regarded at every entertainment as
indispensable to the enjoyment of the guests. They appear at
official dinners at the Foreign Office, and at the palace are the
chief entertainers, and sing and dance at the many parties
which are given by Koreans at the picnic resorts near Seoul,
and though attached to the prefectures, and various other depart-
ments, may be hired by gentlemen to give fascination to their
feasts.

Their training and non-secluded position place them, how-
ever, outside of the reputable classes, and though in Japan
geishas often become the wives of nobles and even of statesmen,
no Korean man would dream of raising a gesang to such a
position.

Dr. Allen, who has had special opportunities of becoming
acquainted with the inner social life of Korea, says that they
are the source of much heartburning to the legal but neglected
wife, who in no case is the wife of her husband's choice, and

354 Korea and Her Neighbors

that Korean folklore abounds with stories of discord arising in
families from attachments to gesang, and of ardent and pro-
longed devotion on the part of young noblemen to these girls,
who they are prevented from marrying by rigid custom. There
is a Korean tale called The Swallow King's Rewards in which
a man is visited with the " ten plagues of Korea," for mal-
treating a wounded swallow, and in it gesang are represented
along with mu-tang as ** among the ten curses of the land."

Dr. Allen, to whom I owe this fact writes, *' Doubtless they
are so considered by many a lonely wife, as well as by the
fathers who mourn to see their sons wasting their substance in
riotous living, as they doubtless did themselves when they were
young."

The house in which I had quarters was much resorted to by
merchants for whom my host transacted brokerage business,
and entertainments were the order of the day. Mr. Yi was
invited to dinner daily, and on the last evening entertained all
who had invited him. Such meals cost per head as much as a
dinner at the St. James's restaurant ! Noise seems essential to
these gatherings. The men shout at the top of their voices.

There is an enormous amount of visiting and entertaining
among men in the cities. Some public men keep open house,
giving their servants as much as ^60 a day for the entertain-
ment of guests. Men who are in easy circumstances go con-
tinually from one house to another to kill time. They never
talk politics, it is too dangerous, but retail the latest gossip of
the court or city and the witticisms attributed to great men,
and tell, hear, and invent news. The front rooms of houses
in which the men live are open freely to all comers. In some
circles, though it is said to a far less extent than formerly, men
meet and talk over what we should call ''questions of literary
criticism," compare poetic compositions, the ability to com-
pose a page of poetry being the grand result of Korean educa-
tion, and discuss the meaning of celebrated works — all litera-
ture being in Chinese.

Exorcists and Dancing Women 355

The common people meet in the streets, the house fronts,
and the inns. They ask each other endless questions, of a
nature that we should think most impertinent, regarding each
other's business, work, and money transactions, and for the latest
news. It is every man's business to hear or create all the news
he can. What he hears he embellishes by lies and exaggera-
tions, Korea is the country of wild rumors. What a Korean
knows, or rather hears, he tells. According to Pere Dallet, he
does not know the meaning of reserve, though he is utterly
devoid of frankness. Men live in company in each others'
houses. Domestic life is unknown. The women in the inner
rooms receive female visitors, and the girl children are present.
The boys at a very early age are removed to the men's apart-
ments, where they learn from the conversation they hear that
every man who respects himself must regard women with con-
tempt.

We left Phyong-yang for Po-san in a very small boat in
which six people and their luggage were uncomfortably packed
and cramped. One of the two boatmen was literally **down
with fever," but with one and the strong ebb-tide we accom-
plished 20 miles in six hours, and were well pleased to find the
Hariong lying at anchor, as we had not been able to get any
definite information concerning her, and I never believed in
her till I saw her. The Tai-dong has some historic interest,
for up its broad waters sailed Ki-ja or Kit-ze with his army of
5,000 men on the way to found Phyong-yang and Korean civi-
lization, and down it fled Ki-jun, the last king of the first dy-
nasty from the forces of Wei-man descending from the north.
Phyong-yang impressed me as it did Consul Carles with its
natural suitability for commerce, and this Tai-dong, navigable
up to the city for small junks, is the natural outlet for beans
and cotton, some of which find their way to Newchwang for
shipment, for the rich iron ore which lies close to the river
banks at Kai Chhon, for the gold of Keum-san only 20 miles
off, for the abounding coal of the immediate neighborhood ;

35^ Korea and Her Neighbors

for the hides, which are now carried on men's backs to Che-
mulpo, and for the products of what is said to be a consider-
able silk industry.

In going down the river something is seen of the original
size of Phyong-yang, for the "earth wall" on solid masonry,
built, it is said, by Kit-ze 3,000 years ago, follows the right
bank of the Tai-dong for about four miles before it turns away
to the north, to terminate at the foot of the hill on which is the
reputed grave of its builder. This extends in that direction
possibly three miles beyond the present wall.

The plain through which the river runs is fertile and well
cultivated, though the shining mud flats at low tide are any-
thing but prepossessing. Various rivers, enabling boats of light
draught to penetrate the country, most of them rising in the pic-
turesque mountain ranges which descend on the plain, specially
on its western side, join the Tai-dong.

Much had been said of the Hariong. I was told I " should
be all right if I could get the Hariong,'' that "the Hariong' s
a most comfortable little boat — she has ten staterooms," and
as we approached her in the mist, very wet, and stiff from the
length of time spent in a cramped position, I conjured up vis-
ions of comfort and even luxury which were not to be realized.

She was surrounded by Japanese junks, Japanese soldiers
crowded her gangways, and Japanese officers were directing
the loading. We hooked on to the junks and lay in the rain
for an hour, nobody taking the slightest notice of us. Mr. Yi
then scrambled on board and there was another half-hour's de-
lay, which took us into the early darkness. He reappeared,
saying there was no cabin and we must go on shore. But there
was no place to sleep on shore and it was the last steamer, so I
climbed on board and Im hurried in the baggage. It was rain-
ing and blowing, and we were huddled on the wet deck like
steerage passengers, Japanese soldiers and commissariat offi-
cers there as elsewhere in Korea, masters of the situation. Mr.
Yi was frantic that he, a Government official, and one from

Exorcists and Dancing Women 357

whom " the Japanese had to ask a hundred favors a month "
should be treated with such indignity ! The vessel was hired
by the Japanese commissariat department to go to Nagasaki,
calling at Chemulpo, and we were really, though unintention-
ally, interlopers !

There was truly no room for me, and the arrangement
whereby I received shelter was essentially Japanese. I lived
in a minute saloon with the commissariat officers, and fed pre-
cariously, Im dealing out to me, at long intervals, the remains
of a curry which he had had the forethought to bring. There
was a Korean purser, but the poor dazed fellow was "no-
where," being totally superseded by a brisk young manikin
who, in the intervals of business, came to me, notebook in
hand, that I might help him to enlarge his English vocabulary.
The only sign of vitality that the limp, displaced purser showed
was to exclaim with energy more than once, "I hate these
Japanese, they've taken our own ships."

Fortunately the sea was quite still, and the weather was dry
and fine ; even Yon-yung Pa-da, a disagreeable stretch of
ocean off the Whang Hai coast, was quiet, the halt of nearly
a day off the new treaty port of Chin-nam-po where the mud
flats extend far out from the shore, was not disagreeable, and
we reached the familiar harbor of Chemulpo by a glorious sun-
set on the frosty evening of the third day from Po-san, the
voyage in a small Asiatic transport having turned out better
than could have been expected.

ITINERARY
Seoul to —

Li.

Ko-yang 40

Pa Ju 40

0-mok 40

Ohur-chuk Kio 30

Song-do 10

0-hung-suk Ju 30

Kun-ko Kai 30

358 Korea and Her Neighbors

Seoul to —

Li.

Tol Maru 35

An-shung-pa Pal 25

Shur-hung 30

Hung-shou Wan 30

Pong-san 40

Whang Ju 40

Kur-moun Tari ....... 30

Chi-dol-pa Pal . 40

Phyong yang 30

Mori-ko Kai ........ 30

Liang-yang Chang ...... 30

Cha-san , . . 30

Shou-yang Yi 40

Ha-kai Oil 35

Ka Chang ........ 35

Hu-ok Kuri 40

Tok Chhon ........ 30

Shur-chong 30

An-kil Yung 20

Shil-yi 40

Mou-chin Tai

25

Sun Chhon 35

Cha-san 30

Siang-yang Chhon 40

An-chin Miriok 30

Phyong-yang 20

Total land journey .... 1060

CHAPTER XXXI

THE HAIR-CROPPING EDICT

THE year 1896 opened for Korea in a gloom as profound
as that in which the previous year had closed. There
were small insurrections in all quarters, various officials were
killed, and some of the rebels threatened to march on the
capital. Japanese influence declined, Japanese troops were
gradually withdrawn from the posts they had occupied, the
engagements of many of the Japanese advisers and controllers
in departments expired and were not renewed, some of the re-
forms instituted by Japan during the period of her ascendency
died a natural death, there was a distinctly retrograde move-
ment, and government was disintegrating all over the land.

The general agitation in the country and several of the more
serious of the outbreaks had a cause which, while to our think-
ing it is ludicrous, shows as much as anything else the intense
conservatism of pung-kok or custom which prevails among the
Koreans. The cause was an attack on the " Top Knot " by a
Royal Edict on 30th December, 1895 ! This set the country
aflame ! The Koreans, who had borne on the whole quietly
the ascendency of a hated power, the murder of their Queen,
and the practical imprisonment of their King, found the at-
tack on their hair more than they could stand. The topknot
is more to a Korean than the queue is to a Chinese. The
queue to the latter may be a sign of subjugation or of loyalty
to the Government and that is all, and the small Chinese boy
wears it as soon as his hair is long enough to plait.

To the Korean the Top Knot means nationality, antiquity
(some say of five centuries, others of 2,000 years), sanctity

359

360 Korea and Her Neighbors

derived from antiquity, entrance on manhood socially and
legally, even though he may be a child in years, the assump-
tion of two names by which in addition to his family name he
is afterwards known, and by which he is designated on the an-
cestral tablets, marriage is intimately bound up with it, as is
ancestral worship, and as has been mentioned in the chapter
on marriage, a Korean without a Top Knot, even if in middle
life, can only be treated as a nameless and irresponsible boy.
In a few cases a Korean, to escape from this stage of disre-
spect, scrapes together enough to pay for the Top Knot cere-
monies and the mang-kun^ hat, and long coat, which are their
sequence, though he is too poor to support a family, but the
Top Knot in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is only as-
sumed on marriage, without wdiich the wearer has the title of
** a half man " bestowed on him !

The ceremonies at the 'Investiture of the Top Knot" de-
serve a brief notice as among the most important of the singu-
larities of the nation. When the fatlier and family have de-
cided that a boy shall be "invested," which in nearly all
cases is on the verge of his marriage, men's clothes, the hat,
mang-hifi, etc., are provided to the limits of the family purse,
and the astrologers are consulted, who choose a propitious day
and hour for the ceremony, as well as the point of the compass
which the chief actor is to face during its progress. The fees
of the regular astrologer are very high, and in the case of the
poor, the blind sorcerer is usually called in to decide on these
important points.

When the auspicious day and hour arrive the family assem-
bles, but as it is a family matter only, friends are not invited.
Luck and prosperity and a number of sons are essential for the
Master of the Ceremonies. If the father has been so blessed
he acts as such, if not, an old friend who has been more lucky
acts for him. The candidate for the distinction and privileges
of manhood is placed in the middle of the room, seated on
the floor, great care being taken that he faces the point of the

The Halr-cropplng Edict 361

compass which has been designated, otherwise he would have
bad luck from that day forward. With much ceremony and
due deliberation the Master of the Ceremonies proceeds to un-
wind the boy's massive plait, shaves a circular spot three inches
in diameter on the crown of his head, brings the whole hair
up to this point, and arranges it with strings into a firm twist
from two and a half to four inches in length, which stands up
from the head slightly forwards like a horn. The mang-kiin,
fillet, or crownless skullcap of horsehair gauze, coming well
down over the brow, is then tied on, and so tightly as to pro-
duce a permanent groove in the skin, and headaches for some
time. The hat, secured by its strings, is then put on, and the
long wide coat, and the boy rises up a man.^ The new man
bows to each of his relations in regular order, beginning with
his grandfather, kneeling and placing his hands, palms down-
ward, on the floor, and resting his forehead for a moment upon
them.

He then offers sacrifices to his deceased ancestors before the
ancestral tablets, lighted candles in high brass candlesticks be-
ing placed on each side of the bowls of sacrificial food or fruit,
and bowing profoundly, acquaints them with the important
fact that he has assumed the Top Knot. Afterwards he calls
on the adult male friends of his family, who for the first time
receive him as an equal, and at night there is a feast in his
honor in his father's house, to which all the family friends who
have attained to the dignity of Top Knots are invited.

The hat is made of fine *' crinoline" so that the Top Knot
may be seen very plainly through it, and weighs only an ounce
and a half. It is a source of ceaseless anxiety to the Korean.
If it gets wet it is ruined, so that he seldom ventures to stir
abroad without a waterproof cover for it in his capacious
sleeve, and it is so easily broken and crushed, that when not
in use it must be kept or carried in a wooden box, usually

1 In chapter ix. p. 114, there is a short notice of what is involved in
the transformation.

362 Korea and Her Neighbors

much decorated, as obnoxious in transit as a lady's bandbox.
The keeping on the hat is a mark of respect. Court officials
appear in the sovereign's presence with their hats on, and the
Korean only takes it off in the company of his most intimate
friends. The mang-kun is a fixture. The Top Knot is often
decorated with a bead of jade, amber, or turquoise, and some
of the young swells wear expensive tortoise-shell combs as its
ornaments. There is no other single article of male equip-
ment that I am aware of which plays so important a part, or is
regarded with such reverence, or is clung to so tenaciously, as
the Korean Top Knot.

On an "institution" so venerated and time-honored,
and so bound up with Korean nationality (for the Korean,
though remarkably destitute of true patriotism, has a strongly
national instinct), the decree of the 30th of December, 1895,
practically abolishing the Top Knot, fell like a thunderbolt.
The measure had been advocated before, chiefly by Koreans
who had been in America, and was known to have Japanese
support, and had been discussed by the Cabinet, but the change
was regarded with such disgust by the nation at large that the
Government was afraid to enforce it. Only a short time before
the decree was issued, three chief officers of the Kiin-reii-fai
entered the Council Chamber with drawn swords, demanding
the instantaneous issue of an edict making it compulsory on
every man in Government employment to have his hair
cropped, and the Ministers, terrified for their lives, all yielded
but one, and he succeeded for the time in getting the issue of
it delayed till after the Queen's funeral. Very shortly after-
wards, however, the King, practically a prisoner, was com-
pelled to endorse it, and he, the Crown Prince, the Tai-Won-
Kun, and the Cabinent were divested of their Top Knots, the
soldiers and police following suit.

The following day the Official Gazette promulgated a de-
cree, endorsed by the King, announcing that he had cut his
hair short, and calling on all his subjects, officials and common

The Hair-cropping Edict 363

people alike, to follow his example and identify themselves
with the spirit of progress which had induced His Majesty
to take this step, and thus place his country on a footing of
equality with the other nations of the world !
The Home Office notifications were as follows : —

Translation
The present cropping of the hair being a measure both advantageous to
the preservation of heahh and convenient for the transaction of business,
our sacred Lord the King, having in view both administrative reform and
national aggrandizement, has, by taking the lead in his own person, set us
an example. All the subjects of Great Korea should respectfully conform
to His Majesty's purpose, and the fashion of their clothing should be as
set forth below : —

1. During national mourning the hat and clothing should, until the ex-
piration of the term of mourning, be white in color as before.

2. The fillet {juang-kiui) should be abandoned.

3. There is no objection to the adoption of foreign clothing.

(Signed) Yu-kil Chun,

Acting Home Minister.
nth moon, 15th day.

No. 2
In the Proclamation which His Majesty graciously issued to-day (nth
moon, 15th day) are words, "We, in cutting Our hair, are setting an ex-
ample to Our subjects. Do you, the multitude, identify yourselves with
Our design, and cause to be accomplished the great work of establishing
equality with the nations of the earth."

At a time of reform such as this, when we humbly peruse so spirited a
proclamation, among all of us subjects of Great Korea who does not
weep for gratitude, and strive his utmost ? Earnestly united in heart and
mind, we earnestly expect a humble conformity with His Majesty's pur-
poses of reformation.

(Signed) Yu-kil Chun,

Acting Home Minister.
504th year since the founding of the Dynasty,
nth moon, 15th day.

Among the reasons which rendered the Top Knot decree
detestable to the people were, that priests and monks, who, in-
stead of being held in esteem, are regarded generally as a

364 Korea and Her Neighbors

nuisance to be tolerated, wear their hair closely cropped, and
the Edict was believed to be an attempt instigated by Japan to
compel Koreans to look like Japanese, and adopt Japanese
customs. So strong was the popular belief that it was to Japan
that Korea owed the denationalizing order, that in the many
places where there were Top Knot Riots it was evidenced by
overt acts of hostility to the Japanese, frequently resulting in
murder.

The rural districts were convulsed. Officials even of the
highest rank found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. If
they cut their hair, they were driven from their lucrative posts
by an infuriated populace, and in several instances lost their
lives, while if they retained the Top Knot they were dismissed
by the Cabinet. In one province, on the arrival from Seoul
of a newly-appointed mandarin with cropped hair, he was
met by a great concourse of people ready for the worst, who
informed him that they had hitherto been ruled by a Korean
man, and would not endure a '' Monk Magistrate,'* on which
he prudently retired to the capital.

All through the land there were Top Knot complexities and
difficulties. Countrymen, merchants, Christian catechists, and
others, who had come to Seoul on business, and had been
shorn, dared not risk their lives by returning to their homes.
Wood and country produce did not come in, and the price of
the necessaries of life rose seriously. Many men who prized
the honor of entering the Palace gates at the New Year feigned
illness, but were sent for and denuded of their hair. The
click of the shears was heard at every gate in Seoul, at the
Palace, and at the official residences ; even servants were not
exempted, and some of the Foreign Representatives were
unable to present themselves at the Palace on New Year's
Day, because their chairmen were unwilling to meet the shears.
A father poisoned himself from grief and humiliation because
his two sons had submitted to the decree. The foundations
of social order were threatened when the Top Knot fell !

The Hair-cropping Edict 365

People who had had their hair cropped did not dare to ven-
ture far from Seoul lest they should be exposed to the violence
of the rural population. At Chun Chhon, 50 miles from the
capital, when the Governor tried to enforce the ordinance, the
people rose en masse and murdered him and his whole estab-
lishment, afterwards taking possession of the town and sur-
rounding country. As policemen with their shears were at the
Seoul gates to enforce the decree on incomers, and peasants
who had been cropped on arriving did not dare to return to
their homes, prices rose so seriously by the middle of January,
1896, that "trouble" in the capital was expected, and an-
other order was issued that " country folk were to be let alone
at that time."

Things went from bad to worse, till on the nth of Febru-
ary, 1896, the whole Far East was electrified by a sensational
telegram—'' The King of Korea has escaped from his Palace,
and is at the Russian Legation."

On that morning the King and Crown Prince in the dim
daybreak left the Kyeng-pok Palace in closed box chairs, such
as are used by the Palace waiting-women, passed through the
gates without being suspected by the sentries, and reached the
Russian Legation, the King pale and trembling as he entered
the spacious suite of apartments which for more than a year
afterwards offered him a secure asylum. The Palace ladies
who arranged the escape had kept their counsel well, and had
caused a number of chairs to go in and out of the gates early
and late during the previous week, so that the flight failed to
attract any attention. As the King does much of his work at
night and retires to rest in the early morning, the ever
vigilant Cabinet, his jailers, supposed him to be asleep, and
it was not until several hours later that his whereabouts became
known, when the organization of a new Cabinet was pro-
gressing, and Korean dignitaries began to be summoned into
the Royal presence.

The King, on gaining security, at once reassumed his long-

366 Korea and Her Neighbors

lost prerogatives, which have never since been curbed in the
slightest degree. The irredeemable Orientalism of the two
following proclamations which were posted over the city within
a few hours of his escape warrants their insertion in full : —

Royal Proclamation
Translation

Alas! alas! on account of Our unworthiness and mal-administration
the wicked advanced and the wise retired. Of the last ten years, none
has passed without troubles. Some were brought on by those We had
trusted as the members of the body, while others, by those of Our own
bone and flesh. Our dynasty of five centuries has thereby been often en-
dangered, and milHons of Our subjects have thereby been gradually im-
poverished. These facts make Us blush and sweat for shame. But these
troubles have been brought about through Our partiality and self-will,
giving rise to rascality and blunders leading to calamities. All have been
Our own fault from the first to the last.

Fortunately, through loyal and faithful subjects rising up in righteous
efforts to remove the wicked, there is a hope that the tribulations experi-
enced may invigorate the State, and that calm may return after the storm.
This accords with the principle that human nature will have freedom
after a long pressure, and that the ways of Heaven bring success after re-
verses. We shall endeavor to be merciful. No pardon, however, shall
be extended to the principal traitors concerned in the afiairs of July, 1894,
and of October, 1895. Capital punishment should be their due, thus
venting the indignation of men and gods alike. But to all the rest, offi-
cials or soldiers, citizens or coolies, a general amnesty, free and full, is
granted, irrespective of the degree of their offences. Reform your hearts ;
ease your minds ; go about your business, public or private, as in times
past.

As to the cutting of the Top Knots — what can We say ? Is it such an
urgent matter ? The traitors, by using force and coercion, brought about
the affair. That this measure was taken against Our will is, no doubt,
well known to all. Nor is it Our wish that the conservative subjects
throughout the country, moved to righteous indignation, should rise up,
as they have, circulating false rumors, causing death and injury to one an-
other, until the regular troops had to be sent to suppress the disturbances
by force. The traitors indulged their poisonous nature in everything.

The Hair-cropping Edict 367

Fingers and hairs would fail to count their crimes. The soldiers are Our
children. So are the insurgents. Cut any of the ten fingers, and one
would cause as much pain as another. Fighting long continued would
pour out blood and heap up corpses, hindering communications and traffic.
Alas ! if this continues the people will all die. The mere contemplation
of such consequences provokes Our tears and chills Our heart. We desire
that as soon as orders arrive the soldiers should return to Seoul and the
insurgents to their respective places and occupations.

As to the cutting of Top Knots, no one shall be forced as to dress and
hats. Do as you please. The evils now afflicting the people shall be
duly attended to by the Government. This is Our own word of honor.
Let all understand.

By order of His Majesty,

(Signed) Pak-chung Yang,

Acting Home and Prime Minister.

nth day, 2nd moon, ist year of Kon-yang.

Proclamation to the Soldiers

On account of the unhappy fate of Our country, traitors have made
trouble every year. Now We have a document informing us of another
conspiracy. We have therefore come to the Russian Legation. The
Representatives of different countries have all assembled.

Soldiers! come and protect us. You are Our children. The troubles
of the past were due to the crimes of chief traitors. You are all par-
doned, and shall not be held answerable. Do your duty and be at ease.
When you meet the chief traitors, viz. Cho-hui Yen, Wu-pom Sun, Yi-tu
Hwong, Yi-pom Nai, Yi-chin Ho, and Kon-yong Chin, cut off their heads
at once, and bring them.

You (soldiers) attend us at the Russian Legation.

nth day, 2nd moon, 1st year of Kon-yang.
Royal Sign.

Following on this, on the sanie day, and while thousands of
people were reading the repeal of the hair-cropping order,
those of the Cabinet who could be caught were arrested and
beheaded in the street — the Prime Minister, who had kept his
place in several Cabinets, and the Minister of Agriculture and
Commerce. The mob, infuriated, and regarding the Premier

368

Korea and Her Neighbors

as the author of the downfall of the Top Knot, gave itself up to
unmitigated savagery, insulting and mutilating the dead bodies
in a manner absolutely fiendish. Another of the Cabinet was
rescued by Japanese soldiers, and the other traitorous members
ran away. A Cabinet, chiefly new, was installed, prison
doors were opened, and the inmates, guilty and innocent alike,
were released, strict orders were given by the King that the
Japanese were to be protected, one having already fallen a
victim to the fury of the populace, and before night fell on
Seoul much of the work of the previous six months had been
undone, and the Top Knot had triumphed. ^

How the Korean King, freed from the strong influence of
the Queen and the brutal control of his mutinous officers,
used his freedom need not be told here. It was supposed just
after his escape that he would become "a mere tool in the
hands of the Russian Minister," but so far was this from being
the case, that before a year had passed it was greatly desired
by many that Mr. VVaeber would influence him against the
bad in statecraft and in favor of the good, and the cause of
his determination not to bias the King in any way remains a
mystery to this day.

The roads which led to the Russian Legation were guarded
by Korean soldiers, but eighty Russian marines were quartered
in the compound and held the gates, while a small piece of
artillery was very much en evidence on the terrace below the
King's windows ! He had an abundant entojirage. For some
months the Cabinet occupied the ballroom, and on the terrace
and round the King's apartments there were always numbers
of Court officials and servants of all grades, eunuchs, Palace
women, etc., while the favorites, the ladies Om and Pak, who
assisted in his escape, were constantly to be seen in his
vicinity.

Revelling in the cheerfulness and security of his surround-

»When I last saw the King this national adornment seemed to have re-
sumed its former proportions.

The Hair-cropping Edict 369

ings, the King shortly built a Palace (to which he removed in
the spring of 1897), surrounding the tablet-house of the Queen,
and actually in Chong-dong, the European quarter, its grounds
adjoining those of the English and U. S. Legations. To the
security of this tablet-house the remains of the Queen, supposed
to consist only of the bones of one finger, were removed on a
lucky day chosen by the astrologers with much pomp.

On this occasion a guard of eighty Russian soldiers occupied
a position close to the Royal tent, not far from one in which
the Foreign Representatives, with the noteworthy exception of
the Japanese Envoy, were assembled. Rolled-up scroll por-
traits of the five immediate ancestors of the King, each en-
closed in a large oblong palanquin of gilded fretwork, and pre-
ceded by a crowd of officials in old Court costume, filed past
the Royal tent, where the King did obeisance, and the Rus-
sian Guard presented arms. This was only the first part of
the ceremony.

Later a colossal catafalque, containing the fragmentary re-
mains of the murdered Queen, was dragged through the streets
from the Kyeng-pok Palace by 700 men in sackcloth, preceded
and followed by a crowd of Court functionaries, also in mourn-
ing, and escorted by Korean drilled troops. The King and
Crown Prince received the procession at the gate of the new
Kyeng-wun Palace, and the hearse, after being hauled up to the
end of a long platform outside the Spirit Shrine, was tracked
by ropes (for no hand might touch it) to the interior, where it
rested under a canopy of white silk, and for more than a year
received the customary rites and sacrifices from the bereaved
husband and son. The large crowd in the streets was orderly
and silent. The ceremony was remarkable both for the re-
vival of picturesque detail and of practices which it was sup-
posed had become obsolete, such as the supporting of officials
on their ponies by retainers, or when on foot by having their
arms propped up.

In July, 1896, Mr. J. M'Leavy Brown, LL.D., Chief Com-

370 Korea and Her Neighbors

missioner of Customs, received by Royal decree the absolute
control of all payments out of the Treasury, and having gained
considerable insight into the complexities of financial corrup-
tion, addressed himself in earnest to the reform of abuses, and
with most beneficial results.

In September a Council of State of fourteen members was
substitued for the Cabinet of Ministers organized under Japa-
nese auspices, a change which was to some extent a return to
old methods.

Many of the attempts made by the Japanese during their as-
cendency to reform abuses were allowed to lapse. The country
was unsettled, a "Righteous Army " having replaced the Tong-
haks. The Minister of the Household and other Royal favor-
ites resumed the practice of selling provincial and other posts
in a most unblushing manner after the slight checks which had
been imposed on this most deleterious custom, and the sover-
eign himself, whose Civil List is ample, appropriated public
moneys for his own purposes, while, finding himself person-
ally safe, and free from Japanese or other control, he reverted
in many ways to the traditions of his dynasty, and in spite of
attempted checks upon his authority, reigned as an absolute
monarch — his edicts law, his will absolute. Meanwhile Japan
was gradually effacing herself or being effaced, and whatever
influence she lost in Korea, Russia gained, but the advantages
of the change were not obvious.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE REORGANIZED KOREAN GOVERNMENT^

THE old system of Government in Korea, which, with but
a few alterations and additions, prevailed from the found-
ing of the present dynasty until the second half of 1894, was
modelled on that of the Ming Emperors of China. The King
was absolute as well in practice as in theory, but to assist him
in governing there was a Eut-chyeng Fii, commonly translated
Cabinet, composed of a so-called Premier, and Senior and
Junior Ministers of State, under whom were Senior and Junior
Chief Secretaries, and Senior and Junior Assistant Secretaries,
with certain minor functionaries, the Government being con-
ducted through Boards as in China, viz. Civil Office, Revenue,
Ceremonies, War, Punishment, and Works, to which were
added after the opening of the country to foreigners. Foreign
and Home Offices. During the present reign the Home Office,
under the Presidency of a powerful and ambitious cousin of
the Queen, Min Yeng-chyun, began to draw to itself all ad-
ministrative power, while Her Majesty's and his relations, who
occupied the chief positions throughout the country, fleeced
the people without restraint. Of the remaining offices which

1 The chapters on the Reorganized Korean Government — Education,
Trade, and Finance— and Dtemonism are intended to aid in the intelli-
gent understanding of those which precede them. The reader who wishes
to go into the subject of the old and the reorganized systems of Korean
Government will find a mass of curious and deeply interesting detail in a
volume entitled, Korean Government, by W. H. Wilkinson, Esq., lately
H.B.M.'s Acting Vice-Consul at Chemulpo, published by the Statistical
Department of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs at Shanghai in
March, 1897. To it I am very greatly indebted.

371

37^ Korea and Her Neighbors

were seated in the Metropolis the chief were the Correctional
Tribunal, an office of the first rank which took cognizance of
the offences of officials, and the Prefecture of Seoul which had
charge of all municipal matters.

Korea was divided into eight Provinces, each under the con-
trol of a Governor, aided by a Civil and Military Secretary.
Magistrates of different grades according to the size of the
magistracies were appointed under him, five fortress cities,
however, being independent of provincial jurisdiction. The
principal tax, the land-tax, was paid in kind, and the local
governments had very considerable control over the local rev-
enues. There were provincial military and naval forces with
large staffs of officers, and Boards, Offices, and Departments
innumeral under Government, each with its legion of super-
numeraries.

The country was eaten up by officialism. It is not only that
abuses without number prevailed, but the whole system of
Government was an abuse, a sea of corruption without a bot-
tom or a shore, an engine of robbery, crushing the life out of
all industry. Offices and justice were bought and sold like
other commodities, and Government was fast decaying, the
one principle which survived being its right to prey on the
governed.

The new order of things, called by the Japanese the "Ref-
ormation," dates from the forcible occupation of the Kyeng-
pok Palace by Japanese troops on the 23rd of July, 1894.
The constitutional changes which have subsequently been pro-
mulgated (though not always carried out) were initiated by
the Japanese Minister in Seoul, and reduced to detail by the
Japanese "advisers" who shortly arrived; and Japan is en-
titled to the credit of having attempted to cope with and rem-
edy the manifold abuses of the Korean system, and of having
bequeathed to the country the lines on which reforms are now
being carried out. It was natural, and is certainly not blame-

The Reorganized Korean Government 373

worthy, that the Japanese had in view the assimilation of Ko-
rean polity to that of Japan.

To bring about the desired reorganization, Mr. Otori, at
that time the Japanese Minister, induced the King to create
an Assembly, which, whatever its ultimate destiny, was to
form meanwhile a Department for " the discussion of all mat-
ters grave and trivial within the realm." The Prime Minister
was its President, and the number of its members was limited
to twenty Councillors. A noteworthy feature in connection
with it was that it invited suggestions from outsiders in the
form of written memoranda.

It met for the first time on the 30th of July, 1894, and for
the last on the 29th of October of the same year. It was
found impossible, either by payment or Royal orders, to secure
a quorum ; and after the Vice-Minister of Justice, one of the
few Councillors who took an active part in the proceedings,
was murdered two days after the last meeting, as was believed,
by an agent of the reactionary party, it practically expired,
and was dissolved by Royal Decree on the 17th of December,
1894, and a reconstituted Privy Council took its place. Those
of its Resolutions, however, which had received the Royal as-
sent became law, and unless repealed or superseded are still
binding.

These Resolutions appeared in the Goveriiment Gazette, an
institution of very old standing, imitated, like most things else,
from China. This was prepared by the Court of Transmis-
sion, a Palace Department, the senior members of which
formed the channel of communication between the King and
the official body at large, and who, while other high officials
could only reach the throne by means of personal memorials
or written memoranda, were privileged to address the King
viva voce, and through whom as a rule his commands were
issued. Each day this Department collected the various mem-
oranda and memorials, the Royal replies and the lists of ap-
pointments, copies of which when edited by it formed the

374 Korea and Her Neighbors

Gazette, which was furnished in MS. to officials throughout
the kingdonfi. The Royal Edicts when published in this paper
became law in Korea.

In July, 1894, Mr. Otori made the useful innovation of pub-
lishing the Gazette in clear type, and in the following January
it appeared in a mixture of Chinese hieroglyphs and En-mititf
the "vulgar script" of Korea, and became intelligible to the
common people. No special change was made at that time,
except that the Resolutions of the Deliberative Assembly were
included in it. Later clianges have assimilated it farther to
the Government Gazette of Japan, and it has gained rather
than lost in importance. Gradually a diminution of tlie power
of the Court of Transmission began to show itself. Its name
was changed to the Receiving Office, and members of the
Cabinet and the Correctional Tribunal began to enjoy direct
access to the King. In April, 1895, a farther change in a
Japanese direction, and one of great significance in Korean
estimation, was made, the date of the Gazette being given
thus : —

"No. I. — 504th year of the Dynasty, 4th moon, ist day,
Wood-day."^

Two months later farther changes in the official Gazette
were announced, and the programme then put forward has
been adhered to, paving the way for many of the changes
which have followed. It is difficult to make the importance
of the Gazette intelligible, except to foreigners who have re-
sided in China and Korea. The reason for dwelling so long
upon it is, that for several centuries the publication in it of
Royal Edicts has given them the force of law and the cur-
rency of Acts of Parliament.

In the pages which follow a brief summary is given of the
outlines of the scheme for the reorganization of the Korean

' Wood-day is the term adopted by the Japanese for Thursday, their
week, which has now been imposed on the Koreans, being Sun-day,
Moon-day, Fire-day, Water-day, Wood-day, Metal-day, and Earth-day.

The Reorganized Korean Government 375

Government, which was prepared for the most part by the
Japanese advisers, honorary and salaried, who have been en-
gaged on the task since 1894, and which has been accepted
by the King.

The first change raised the status of the King and the Royal
Family to that of the Imperial Family of China. After this,
it was enacted, following on the King's Oath of January,
1895, that the Queen and Royal Family were no longer to
interfere in the affairs of State, and that His Majesty would
govern by the advice of a Cabinet, and sign all ordinances to
which his assent is given. The Cabinet, which was, at least
nominally, located in the Palace, had two aspects — a Council
of State, and a State Department, presided over by the
Premier.

I. — As THE Council of State

The members of the Cabinet or Ministers of State were the
Premier, the Home Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
the Finance Minister, the War Minister, the Minister of Edu-
cation, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Agricul-
ture, Trade and Industry. A Foreign Adviser is supposed to
be attached to each of the seven Departments.

Ministers in Council were empowered to consider — the
framing of laws and ordinances ; estimates and balance-sheets
of yearly revenue and expenditure ; public debt, domestic and
foreign ; international treaties and important conventions ;
disputes as to the respective jurisdictions of Ministers; such
personal memorials as His Majesty might send down to them ;
supplies not included in the estimates ; appointments and pro-
motions of high officials, other than legal or military ; the re-
tention, abolition, or alteration of old customs; abolition
or institution of offices, and, without reference to their
special relations to any one Ministry, their reconstruction or
amendment; the imposition of new taxes or their alteration ;
and the control and management of public lands, forests,

37^ Korea and Her Neighbors

buildings, and vessels. All ordinances after being signed and
sealed by the King required the countersign of the Premier.

The second function of the Cabinet as a Department of
State it is needless to go into.

A Privy Council was established at the close of 1894 to
take the place of the Deliberative Assembly which had col-
lapsed, and is now empowered, when consulted by the Cabinet,
to inquire into and pass resolutions concerning : —

I. The framing of laws and ordinances.

II. Questions which may from time to time be referred to it
by the Cabinet.

The Council consists of a President, Vice-President, not
more than fifty Councillors, two Secretaries, and four Clerks.
The Councillors are appointed by the Crown on the recom-
mendation of the Premier, and must either be men of rank,
or those who have done good service to the State, or are ex-
perts in politics, law, or economics. The Privy Council is
prohibited from having any correspondence on public matters
with private individuals, or with any officials but Ministers and
Vice-Ministers. The President presides. Two-thirds of the
members must be present to form a quorum. Votes are given
openly, resolutions are carried by a majority, and any Council-
lor dissenting from a resolution so carried has a right to have
his reasons recorded in the minutes.

In the autumn of 1896 some important changes were made.
A Decree of the 24th of September condemned in strong lan-
guage the action of " disorderly rebels, who some three years
ago revolutionized the Constitution," and changed the name
of the King's advising body. The decree ordained that the
old name, translated Council of State, ''should be restored,
and declared that new regulations would be issued, which,
while adhering to ancient principles, would confirm such of
the enactments of the previous three years as in the King's
judgment were for the public good." The Council of State
was organized by the first ordinance of a new series, and the

The Reorganized Korean Government 377

preamble, as well as one at least of the sections, marks a dis-
tinctly retrograde movement and a reversion to the absolutism
renounced in the King's Oath of January, 1895.^ It is dis-
tinctly stated that " any motion debated at the Council may re-
ceive His Majesty's assent, without regard to the number of
votes in its favor, by virtue of the Royal prerogative; or
should the debates on any motion not accord with His Ma-
jesty's views, the Council may be commanded to reconsider
the matter." Resolutions which the King approves, on pub-
lication in the Gazette^ become law.

Thus perished the checks which the Japanese sought to
impose on the absolutism of the Crown, and at the present
time the Royal will (or whim) can and does override all else.

This Eui-chyeng Pu or Council, like the Nai Kak, its pred-
ecessor, is both a Council of State, and a State Department
presided over by the Chancellor. The members of the
Council of State are the Chancellor, the Home Minister, who
is, ex officio, Vice-chancellor, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
Finance, War, Justice, and Agriculture, five Councillors, and
the Chief Secretary. As a State Department under the Chan-
cellor, the staff consists of the "Director of the General
Bureau," the Chancellor's Private Secretary, the Secretary,
and eight clerks.

The Council of State, as now constituted, is empowered, to
pass resolutions concerning the enactment, abrogation, altera-
tion, or interpretation of laws or regulations ; peace and war
and the making of treaties ; restoration of domestic order ;
telegraphs, railways, mines, and other undertakings, and ques-
tions of compensation arising therefrom ; the estimates and
special appropriations ; taxes, duties, and excise ; matters sent
down to the Council by special command of the Sovereign ;
publication of laws and regulations approved by the King.

The King, if he so pleases, is present in person, or may
send the Heir-Apparent to represent him. The Chancellor
' See p. 250.

378 Korea and Her Neighbors

presides, two-thirds of the members from a quorum, motions
are carried by a numerical majority, and finally a memorial
stating in outline the debate and its issue is submitted by the
Chancellor to the King, who issues such commands as may
seem to him best, for, as previously stated, His Majesty is not
bound to acquiesce in the decision of the majority.

The Eui-chyejig Pii as a Department of State through the
*' Director of the General Bureau" has three sections —
Archives, Gazette, and Accounts, and is rather a recording
than an initiating office.

The scheme for the reconstruction of the Provincial and
Metropolitan Governments has introduced many important
changes and retrenchments. The thirteen Provinces are now
divided into 339 Prefectures, Seoul having a Government of its
own. The vast entourage of provincial authorities has been
reduced, and a Provincial Governor's staff is now limited,
nominally at least, to six clerks, two chief constables, thirty
police, ten writers, four ushers, fifteen messengers, eight
coolies, and eight boys. Ordinances under the head of " Local
Government" define the jurisdiction, powers, duties, period
of office, salaries, and etiquette^ of all officials, along with

1 Official Intercourse. Ord, 45 amends some old practices regulating
the intercourse and correspondence of officials. The etiquette of the
official call by a newly appointed Prefect on the Governor, on the whole,
is retained, although it is in some respects simplified. The old fashion
obliged the Magistrate to remain outside the yanien gate, while a large
folded sheet of white paper inscribed with his name, was sent in to the
Governor. The latter thereupon gave orders to his personal attendants or
ushers to admit the Magistrate. The i'oin, as they were commonly styled,
called out " Sa-ryfeng,'" to which the servants chanted a reply. The Gov-
ernor being seated, the Magistrate knelt outside the room and bowed to
the ground. To this obeisance the Governor replied by raising his arms
over his head. The Magistrate was asked his name and age, given some
stereotyped advice, and dismissed. The Governor is for the future to re-
turn the bow of the Prefect, and conversation is to be conducted in terms
of mutual respect, the Magistrate describing himself as ha-koan (" your
subordinate "), and addressing the Governor by his title.

The Reorganized Korean Government 379

many minor matters. It is in this Department that the re-
forms instituted by the Japanese are the most sweeping. Very
many offices were abolished, and all Govermiient property be-
longing to the establishments of the officials holding them
was ordered to be handed over to officers of the new regime.
A Local Government Bureau was established with sections,
under which local finance in cities and towns and local ex-
penditure of every kind were to be dealt with. An Engineer-
ing Bureau dealing with civil engineering and a Land Survey,
a Registration Bureau dealing with an annual census of the
population and the registration of lands, a Sanitary Bureau,
and an Accounts Bureau form part of the very ambitious Local
Government scheme, admirable on paper, and which, if it
were honestly carried out, would strike at the roots of many of
the abuses which are the curse of Korea. The whole pro-
vincial system as reorganized is under the Home Office.

An important part of the new scheme is the definition of the
duties and jurisdiction of the Ministers of State. The Cabinet
Orders dealing with the duties and discipline of officials at
large so far issued are : —

Order I. General rules for the conduct of public business.

" 2. Memorabilia for officials.

" 3, Resumption of office after mourning.

«' 4. Reprimand and correction.

" 5. Obligation to purchase the Gazette.

" 6. Memorials to be on ruled paper.

The management of public offices under the new system is
practically the same as the Japanese.

The Memorabilia for Officials are as follows: —

(a^ No official must trespass outside his own jurisdiction.

(J)') Where duties have been deputed to a subordinate, the latter must
not be continually interfered with.

(r) A subordinate ordered to do anything which in his opinion is ir-
regular or irrelevant slwuld expostulate with his senior. If the latter
holds by his opinion, the junior must conform.

380 Korea and Her Neighbors

{d) Officials must be straightforward and outspoken, and not give out-
ward acquiescence while privately criticising or hindering th^ir superiors.

(^) Officials must not listen to suggestions from outsiders or talk with
them on official business.

(/) Officials must be frank with one another, and not form cliques.

{g) No official must wilfully spread false rumors about another or
lightly credit such.

{h) No official must absent himself from office without permission dur-
ing office hours, or frequent the houses of others.

Resolution 88, passed some months earlier, was even more
explicit : —

Officials are thereby forbidden to divulge official secrets even when wit-
nesses in a court of law, unless specially permitted to do so ; or to show
despatches to outsiders. They are not allowed to become directors or
managers in a public company ; to accept compensation from private in-
dividuals or gifts from their subordinates; to undertake, without permis-
sion, extra work for payment ; or to put to private use Government horses.
They may receive honors or presents from foreign Sovereigns or Govern-
ments only with the special sanction of His Majesty.

An ordinance restored the use of the uniforms worn prior to
the ** Reformation," whether Court dress, full dress, half-
dress, or undress, and announced that neither officials nor
private persons were to be compelled any longer to wear black.

Each Department is presided over by a Minister, who is em-
powered to issue Departmental Orders, as Instructions to the
local officials and police, and Notifications to the people. His
jurisdiction over the police and local officials is concurrent
with that of his colleagues, who must also be consulted by
him before recommending to the Throne the promotion or
degradation of the higher officials of his Departmental Staff.

Under the Minister is a Vice-Minister, empowered to act for
him on occasion, and, when doing so, possessing equal privi-
leges. The Vice-Minister is usually the head of the Minister's
Secretariat, which deals with '^ confidential matters, promo-
tions, custody of the Minister's and Departmental Seals, receipt

The Reorganized Korean Government 381

and despatch of correspondence, and consultation of prec-
edents, preparation of statistics, compilation and preservation
of archives."

In addition to the Secretariats, there are a number of Bureaux,
both Secretariats and Bureaux being, for convenience, subdi-
vided into sections, each of which has its special duties.

The Departments of Government are as follows : —

Home Office
The Home Minister has charge of matters concerning local
government, police, jails, civil engineering, sanitation, shrines
and temples, surveying, printing census, and public charity, as
well as the general supervision of the local authorities and the
police.

Foreign Office
The Foreign Minister is vested with the control of inter-
national affairs, the protection of Korean commercial interests
abroad, and the supervision of the Diplomatic and Consular
Services.

The Treasury

*' The Minister for Finance, being vested with the control
of the finances of the Government, will have charge of all
matters relating to accounts, revenue, and expenditure, taxes,
national debts, the currency, banks, and the like, and will
have supervision over the finances of each local administra-
tion " (Ord. 54, § i).

Under this Minister there is a Taxation Bureau with three
sections — Land Tax, Excise, and Customs.^ The ordinances

1 The finances of Korea are now practically under British management,
Mr. J. M'Leavy Brown, LL. D,, of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Cus-
toms, and Chief Commissioner of Customs for Korea, having undertaken
in addition the post of Financial Adviser to the Treasury, and a Royal
Edict having been issued that every order for a payment out of the na-
tional purse, down to the smallest, should be countersigned by him.

382 Korea and Her Neighbors

connected with the remodelled system of taxation and the
salaries and expenses of officials are very numerous and minute.
The appropriation actually in money for the Sovereign's Privy
Purse was fixed at ;^5oo,ooo.

War Office

The Minister for War, who must be a general officer, has
charge of the military administration of an army lately fixed
at 6,000 men, and the chief control of men and matters in
the army, and is to exercise supervision over army divisions,
and all buildings and forts under his Department. The new
military arrangements are very elaborate.

Ministry of Education

In this important Department, besides the Minister and
Vice-Minister and heads of Bureaux and Sections, there are
three special Secretaries who act as Inspectors of Schools, and
an official specially deputed to compile and select text-books.

Besides the Minister's Secretariat, there are the Education
Bureau, which is concerned with primary, normal, intermedi-
ary, foreign language, technical and industrial schools, and
students abroad ; and a Compilation Bureau, concerned with
the selection, translation, and compilation of text-books; the
purchase, preservation, and arrangement of volumes, and the
printing of books.

Under this Department has been placed the Confucian Col-
lege, an institution of the old regime, the purpose of which
was to attend to the Temple of Literature, in which, as in
China, the Memorial Tablets of Confucius, Mencius, and the
Sages are honored, and to encourage the study of the classical
books. The subjects for study are the ''Three Classics,"
"Four Books and Popular Commentary," Chinese Compo-
sition, Outlines of Chinese History — of the Sung, Yiian, and
Ming Dynasties. To meet the reformed requirements, this
College has been reorganized, and the students, who must be

The Reorganized Korean Government 383

between the ages of twenty and forty, *'of good character,
persevering, intelligent, and well acquainted with affairs," are
in addition put through a course of Korean and foreign an-
nals, Korean and foreign geography, and arithmetic.

Ministry of Justice

The Minister of Justice has charge of judicial matters, par-
dons and restorations to rank, instructions for public prosecu-
tion, and supervision over Special Courts, High Courts, and
District Courts ; and the Department forms a High Court of
Justice for the hearing of certain appeals.

Ministry of Agriculture, Trade, and Industry

The Minister of Agriculture has charge of all matters re-
lating to agriculture, commerce, industries, posts, telegraphs,
shipping, and marine officers.

In this Department, besides the Minister's Secretariat, there
are Bureaux of Agriculture, Communications, Trade, In-
dustry, Mining, and Accounts. The Bureau of Agriculture
contains Agricultural, Forest, and Natural Products sections ;
that of Communications, Post, Telegraph, and Marine sec-
tions ; and that of Trade and Industry deals with Commerce,
Trading Corporations, Weights and Measures, Manufactures,
and Factories. The Mining Bureau has sections for Mines
and Geology, and the Bureau of Accounts deals with the in-
ventories and expenditure of the Department.

The Village System

Besides the Reorganization of these important Departments
of State, a design for a ''Village System," organized as fol-
lows, is to supersede that which had decayed with the general
decay of Government in Korea.

The country is now divided into districts {Kun), each Kim
containing a number of ?}iyen or cantons, each of which in-
cludes a number of tti or villages. The old posts and titles are

384 Korea and Her Neighbors

abolished, and each village is now to be provided with the fol-
lowing officers : —

1. Headman. — He must be over thirty years of age, and
is elected for one year by the householders. The office is
honorary.

2. Clerk. — He holds office under the same conditions as
the Headman, under whom he keeps the books and issues
notices.

3. Elder. — Nominated by the householders, he acts for the
Headman as occasion demands.

4. Bailiff. — Elected at the same time as the Headman he
performs the usual duties of a servant or messenger, and holds
office for a year on good behavior.

The corresponding officers of the canton (commune) are a
Mayor f a Clerky a Bailiff, and a Communal Usher who is ir-
removable except for cause given, and is, like the other offi-
cials, elected by the canton.

A Village Council is composed of the Headman and one
man from each family, and is empowered to pass resolutions
on matters connected with education, registration of house-
holds or lands, sanitation, roads and bridges, communal grain
exchanges, agricultural improvements, common woods and
dykes, payment of taxes, relief in famine or other calamity,
adjustment of the corvee, savings associations, and by-laws.
The Headman, who acts as chairman, has not only a casting
vote, but the power to veto. A resolution passed over the veto
of the Headman has to be referred to the Mayor, and over the
veto of the Mayor to the Prefect. If passed twice over the
veto of the Prefect, reference may be made to the Governor.
All resolutions, however, must be submitted twice a year to
the Home Office, through the Prefect and Governor ; and it
is incumbent on the Prefectural Council to sit at least twice
in the year.

Taxes are by a law of 13th October, 1895, classified as Land-
Tax, Scutage, Mining Dues, Customs Dues, and Excise. Ex-

The Reorganized Korean Government 385

cise is now made to include, besides ginseng dues, what are
known as * 'Miscellaneous Dues," viz. rent of glebe lands, tax
on rushes used in mat-making, market dues on firewood and
tobacco, tax on kilns, tax on edible seaweed, tax on grind-
stones, up-river dues, and taxes on fisheries, salterns, and
boats. All other imposts have been declared illegal. The
first Korean Budget under the reformed system was published
in January, 1896, and showed an estimated revenue from all
sources of ^4,809,410.

The Palace Department underwent reorganization, nomi-
nally at least, and elaborate schemes for the administration of
Royal Establishments, State Temples, and Mausolea were de-
vised, and the relative rank of members of the Royal Clan,
including ladies, was fixed — the ladies of the King's Seraglio
being divided into eight classes, and those of the Crown
Prince into four. The number of Court officials attached to
the different Royal Households, though diminished, is legion.

Various ordinances brought the classification of Korean
officials into line with those of Japan. Every class in the
country, private and official, has come into the purview of
the Reorganizers, and finds its position {on paper) more or less
altered.

Among the more important of the Edicts which have nom-
inally become law are the following : —

Agreements with China cancelled. Distinctions between
Patrician and Plebeian abolished. Slavery abolished. Early
Marriages prohibited. Remarriage of widows permitted.
Bribery to be strictly forbidden. No one to be arrested with-
out warrant for civil offences. Couriers, mountebanks, and
butchers no longer to be under degradation. Local Councils
to be established. New coinage issued. Organization of
Police force. No one to be punished without trial. Irregular
taxation by Provincial Governments forbidden. Extortion of
money by officials forbidden. Family of a criminal not to be
involved in his doom. Great modifications as to torture.

386 Korea and Her Neighbors

Superfluous Paraphernalia abolished. School of Instruction in
Vaccination. Hair-cropping Proclamation. Solar Calendar
adopted. "Drilled Troops" (Xw/^-r^/^-/^/) abolished. Legal
punishments defined. Slaughter-Houses licensed. Committee
of Legal Revision appointed. Telegraph Regulations. Postal
Regulations. Railways placed under Bureau of Communica-
tions. These ordinances are a selection from among several
hundred promulgated since July, 1894.

Of the reforms notified during the last three and a half years
several have not taken effect ; and concerning others there has
been a distinctly retrograde movement, with a tendency to
revert to the abuses of the old 7'egime ; and others which were
taken in hand earnestly, have gradually collapsed, owing in
part to the limpness of the Korean character, and in part to
the opposition of all in office and of all who hope for office to
any measures of reform. Some, admirable in themselves, at
present exist only on paper ; but, on the whole, the reorgan-
ized system, though in many respects fragmentary, is a great
improvement on the old one ; and it may not unreasonably be
hoped that the young men, who are now being educated in en-
lightened ideas and notions of honor, will not repeat the in-
iquities of their fathers.

CHAPTER XXXIII

EDUCATION AND FOREIGN TRADE

KOREAN education has hitherto failed to produce patriots,
thinkers, or honest men. It has been conducted thus.
In an ordinary Korean school the pupils, seated on the floor
with their Chinese books in front of them, the upper parts of
their bodies swaying violently from side to side or backwards
and forwards, from daylight till sunset, vociferate at the
highest and loudest pitch of their voices their assigned lessons
from the Chinese classics, committing them to memory or re-
citing them aloud, writing the Chinese characters, filling their
receptive memories with fragments of the learning of the
Chinese sages and passages of mythical history, the begoggled
teacher, erudite and supercilious, rod in hand and with a book
before him, now and then throwing in a word of correction in
stentorian tones which rise above the din.

This educational mill grinding for ten or more years enabled
the average youth to aspire to the literary degrees which were
conferred at the Kwa-ga or Royal Examinations held in Seoul
up to 1894, and which were regarded as the stepping-stones to
official position, the great object of Korean ambition. There
is nothing in this education to develop the thinking powers or
to enable the student to understand the world he lives in. The
effort to acquire a difficult language, the knowledge of which
gives him a mastery of his own, is in itself a desirable mental
discipline, and the ethical teachings of Confucius and Mencius,
however defective, contain much that is valuable and true, but
beyond this little that is favorable can be said.

Narrowness, grooviness, conceit, superciliousness, a false

387

388 Korea and Her Neighbors

pride which despises manual labor, a selfish individualism,
destructive of generous public spirit and social trustfulness, a
slavery in act and thought to customs and traditions 2,000
years old, a narrow intellectual view, a shallow moral sense,
and an estimate of women essentially degrading, appear to be
the products of the Korean educational system.

With the abolition of the Royal Examinations ; a change as
to the methods of Government appointments ; the working of
the Western leaven ; the increased prominence given to En-
mun, and the slow entrance of new ideas into the country,
some of the desire for this purely Chinese education has passed
away, and it has been found necessary to stimulate what
threatened to become a flagging interest in all education by
new educational methods and forces, the influence of which
should radiate from the capital.

There are now (October, 1897) Government Vernacular
Schools, a Government School for the study of English, For-
eign Language Schools, and Mission Schools. Outside the
Vernacular and Mission Schools there is the before-mentioned
Royal English School, with 100 students in uniform, regularly
drilled by a British Sergeant of Marines, and crazy about foot-
ball ! These young men, in appearance, manners, and rapid
advance in knowledge of English, reflect great credit on their
instructors. After this come Japanese, French, and Russian
Schools, at present chiefly linguistic. Mr. Birukoff, in charge
of the Russian School, was a captain of light artillery in the
Russian army, and in both the Russian and French schools the
students are drilled daily by Russian drill instructors.

Undoubtedly the establishment which has exercised and is
exercising the most powerful educational, moral, and intel-
lectual influence in Korea is the Pai Chai College ("Hall for
the rearing of Useful Men "), so named by the King in 1887.
This, which belongs to the American Methodist Episcopal
Church, has had the advantage of the services of one Princi-
pal, the Rev. H. G. Appenzeller, for eleven years. It has a

Education and Foreign Trade 389

Chinese-^//-;;///;/ department, for the teaching of the Chinese
classics, Sheffield's Universal History, etc., a small theological
department, and an English department, in which reading,
grammar, composition, spelling, history, geography, arithme-
tic, and the elements of chemistry and natural philosophy are
taught. Dr. Jaisohn, a Korean educated in America, has re-
cently lectured once a week at this College on the geographical
divisions of the earth and the political and ecclesiastical his-
tory of Europe, and has awakened much enthusiasm. A pa-
triotic spirit is being developed among the students, as well as
something of the English public school spirit with its traditions
of honor. This College is undoubtedly making a decided im-
pression, and is giving, besides a liberal education, a measure
of that broader intellectual view and deepened moral sense
which may yet prove the salvation of Korea. Christian in-
struction is given in Korean, and attendance at chapel is com-
pulsory. The pupils are drilled, and early in 1897, during
the military craze, adopted a neat European military uniform.
There is a flourishing industrial department, which includes a
tri-lingual press and a book-binding establishment, both of
which have full employment.

Early in 1895 the Government, recognizing the importance
of the secular education given in this College, made an agree-
ment by which it could place pupils up to the number of 200
there, paying for their tuition and the salaries of certain tutors.

There are other schools for girls and boys, in which an in-
dustrial training is given, conducted with some success by the
same Mission, and the American Presbyterians have several
useful schools, and pay much attention to the training of girls.

The Societe des Missions Etran^eres has in Seoul an Or-
phanage and two Boys' Schools, Avith a total of 262 children.
The principal object is to train the orphans as good Roman
Catholics. In the Boys* Schools the pupils are taught to read
and write Chinese and En-inini, and to a limited extent they
study the Chinese classics. The religious instruction is given

390 Korea and Her Neighbors

in En-7?iun. They aim at providing a primary education for
the children of Korean converts.

The boys in the Orphanage are taught En-mun only, and at
thirteen are adopted by Roman Catholics in Seoul or the coun-
try, and learn either farming or trades, or, assuming their own
support, enter a trade or become servants. The elder girls
learn En-77iun, sewing, and housework, and at fifteen are mar-
ried to the sons of Roman Catholics. At Riong San near
Seoul there is a Theological Seminary for the training of can-
didates for the priesthood.

Besides these there is a school established in 1896 by the
"Japanese Foreign Educational Society," which is composed
chiefly of "advanced" Japanese Christians. The course of
study embraces the Chinese classics, E^i-miin^ composition,
the study of Japanese as a medium for the study of Western
learning, and lectures on science and religion. This school
was intended by its founders to work as a Christian propa-
ganda.

In 1897 there were in Seoul nearly 900 students, chiefly
young men, in Mission and Foreign Schools, inclusive of 100
in the Royal English School, which has English teachers. In
the majority of these the students are trained in Christian
morality, fundamental science, general history, and the princi-
ples of patriotism. A certain amount of denationalization is
connected with most of the Boys' Schools, for the students
necessarily receive new ideas, thoughts, and views of life,
which cannot be shaken out of them by any local circum-
stances, changing their standpoints and the texture of their
minds for life. When they replace the elder generation better
things may be expected for Korea.

The Korean reformed ideas of education, which had their
origin during the Japanese reform era, embrace the creation of
a primary school system, an efficient Normal College, and In-
termediate Schools. Actually existing under the Department
of Education are a revived Confucian School, the Royal Eng-

Education and Foreign Trade 391

lish School, and the Normal College, placed in May, 1897,
under the very efficient care of the Rev. H. B. Hulbert, M.A.,
a capable and scholarly man, some of whose contributions to
our knowledge of Korean poetry and music have enriched
earlier chapters of these volumes. Text-books in En-mun and
teachers who can teach them have to be created. It is hoped
and expected that supply will follow demand, and that in a
few years the larger provincial towns will possess Intermediate
or High Schools, and the villages attain the advantages of ele-
mentary schools, all using a uniform series of text-books in the
vernacular. Chinese finds its place in the curriculum, but not
as the medium for teaching Korean and general history, or
geography and arithmetic, which must be acquired through
the native tongue.

In spite of the somewhat spasmodic and altogether unscien-
tific methods of the Education Department, it has succeeded
in getting the revived Normal College under way, as well as a
fair number of primary schools, where over 1,000 boys are
learning the elements of arithmetic, geography, and Korean
history, with brief outlines of the systems of government in
other civilized countries. Seventy-seven youths are studying
in Japan at Government expense, and have made fair progress
in languages, but are said to show a lack of mathematical
aptitude and logical power. Altogether the Korean educa-
tional outlook is not without elements of hopefulness.

Though the Foreign Trade of Korea only averages some-
thing less than ^£1, 500, 000 annually, the potential commerce
of a country with not less than 12,000,000 of people, all cot-
ton-clad, ought not to be overlooked. The amount of foreign
trade which exists is the growth of thirteen years only, but
when we remember that Korea is a purely agricultural country
of a very primitive and backward type, that many of her fin-
est valleys are practically isolated by mountain ranges, trav-
ersed by nearly impassable roads, that the tyranny of custom
is strong, that the Korean farmer is only just learning that a

392 Korea and Her Neighbors

profitable and almost unlimited demand exists for his rice and
beans across the sea, that the serious cost of his cotton cloth-
ing can be kept down by importing foreign yarn or piece goods,
and that his comfort can be increased by the introduction of
articles of foreign manufacture, and that such facts are only
slowly entering the secluded valleys of the Hermit Kingdom,
the actual bulk of the trade is rather surprising, and its possi-
bilities are worth considering. The net imports of foreign
goods have increased from the value of ^2,474,189 in 1886 to
$6,531,324 in 1896.^ Measured in dollars, the trade of 1896
exceeds that of any previous year except 1895, when the occu-
pation of Korea by Japanese troops, with their large following
of transport coolies, created an artificial expansion.

Among Korean exports, which chiefly consist of beans, fish
(dried manure), cow-hides, ginseng, paper, rice, and seaweed,
there are none which are likely to find a market elsewhere than
in China and Japan, but Korea, so far as rice goes, is on the
way to become the granary of the latter country, her export in
1890 having reached the value of ;;^2 7i,ooo.

With imports, European countries, India, and America are
concerned. Without, I think, being over sanguine, I antici-
pate a time when, with improved roads, railroads, and enlight-
enment, together with security for the earnings of labor from
official and patrician exactions, the Korean will have no further
occasion for protecting himself by an appearance of squalid
poverty, and when he will become on a largely increased scale
a consumer as well as a producer, and will surround himself
with comforts and luxuries of foreign manufacture, as his breth-
ren are already doing under the happier rule of Russia. Under
the improved conditions which it is reasonable to expect, I
should not be surprised if the value of the Foreign Trade of
Korea were to reach ^^lo, 000, 000 in another quarter of a cen-
tury, and the share which England is to have of it is an im-
portant question.

' For detailed statistics of Korean Foreign Trade, see Appendix C.

Education and Foreign Trade 393

Our great competitor in the Korean markets is Japan, and
we have to deal not only with a rival within twenty hours of
Korean shores, and with nearly a monopoly of the carrying
trade, but with the most nimble-witted, adaptive, persevering,
and pushing people of our day. It is inevitable that British
hardware and miscellaneous articles must be ousted by the
products of Japanese cheaper labor, and that the Japanese will
continue to supply the increasing demand for scissors, knives,
matches, needles, hoes, grass knives, soap, perfumes, kerosene
lamps, iron cooking pots, nails, and the like, but the loss of
the trade in cotton piece goods would be a serious matter, and
the possibility of it has to be faced.

The value of the import trade in 1896 was ;£7o8,46i as
against ^£875, 816 for 1895 (an exceptional year), and the
larger part of this reduction took place in articles of British
manufacture, the decrease of ^134,304 in the value of cotton
imports falling almost entirely on cottons of British origin, the
Japanese import not only retaining its position in spite of ad-
verse circumstances, but showing a slight increase. Japanese
sheetings showed a substantial increase, more than counterbal-
anced by the diminished import of the British and American
article, and Japanese cotton yarn continued to arrive in larger
quantities, and is gradually driving British and Indian yarn
out of the Korean market. It can be sold at a considerably
lower price than the British article, and practically at the same
price as the Indian, with which its improved quality enables it
to compete on very favorable terms.

As the result of inquiries carried on during my two journeys
in the interior, as well as at the treaty ports, it does not appear
to me that Japanese success is even chiefly caused by proxim-
ity, and in 1896 she had to compete with the enterprise and
energy of the Chinese, who, having returned after the war to
the benefits of British protection, were pushing the distribu-
tion of Manchester goods imported from Shanghai.

Rather I am inclined to think that the success of our rival is

394 Korea and Her Neighbors

mainly due to causes which I have seen in operation in Persia
and Central Asia as well as in Korea, and which embrace not
only imperfect knowledge of the tastes and needs of customers,
but the neglect to act upon information supplied by consular
and diplomatic agents, a groovy adherence to British methods
of manufacture, and the ignoring of native desires as to colors,
patterns, and the widths and makes which suit native clothing
and treatment, and the size of bales best suited to native
methods of transport. I do not allude to the charge ofttimes
made against our manufacturers of supplying inferior cottons,
because I have never seen any indications of its correctness,
nor have I heard any complaints on the subject either in Korea
or China, but of the ignoring of the requirements of customers
there is no doubt. It is everywhere a grievance and source of
loss, and is likely to lose us the prospective advantages of the
Korean market.

The Japanese success, putting the advantages of proximity
aside, is, I believe, mainly due to the accuracy of the informa-
tion obtained by their keen-witted agents, who have visited all
the towns and villages in Korea, and to the carefulness with
which their manufacturers are studying the tastes and require-
ments of the Korean market. Their goods reach the shore in
manageable bales, which do not require to be adapted after
arrival to the minute Korean pony, and their price, width,
length, and texture commend them to the Korean consumer.
The Japanese understand that cotton i8 inches wide is the
only cotton from which Korean garments can be fashioned
without very considerable waste, and they supply the market
with it; and on the report of the agents of the importing
firms, the weavers of Osaka and other manufacturing towns
with adroitness and rapidity closely adapted the texture, width,
and length of their cottons to those of the hand-loom cotton
goods made in South Korea, which are deservedly popular for
their durability, and have succeeded not only in producing an
imitation of Korean cotton cloth, which stands the pounding

Education and Foreign Trade 395

and beating of Korean washing, but one which actually de-
ceives the Korean weavers themselves as to its origin, and
which has won great popularity with the Korean women. If
Korea is to be a British market in the future, the lost ground
must be recovered by working on Japanese lines, which are
the lines of commercial common sense.

To sum up, I venture to express the opinion that the circum-
stances of the large population of Korea are destined to gradual
improvement with the aid of either Japan or Russia, that for-
eign trade must increase more or less steadily with increased
buying powers and improved means of transport, and that the
amount which falls to the share of Great Britain will depend
largely upon whether British manufacturers are willing or not
to adapt their goods to Korean tastes and convenience.

As instances of the aptitude of the Koreans for taking to
foreign articles which suit their needs, it may be mentioned,
on the authority of a report from the British Consul-General
to the British Foreign Office on Trade and Finance in Korea
for 1896, presented to Parliament July, 1897, that the import
of lucifer matches reached the figure of ^^i 1,386,^ while that
of American and Russian kerosene exceeded ^36,000.

In 1896 the export of gold increased, and was ^1,390,412,
one million dollars' worth being exported from Won-san alone.
The gold export included, the excess of Korean imports over
exports was only about ^£"50,000, and as it is estimated that
only one half of the gold actually leaving the country is de-
clared, it may be assumed that Korea is able to pay for a larger
supply of foreign goods than she has hitherto taken. The sta-
tistics of Korean Foreign Trade which are to be found in the
Appendix are the latest returns, supplied to me by the courtesy
of the Korean Customs' Department,^ the returns of shipping
and of principal articles of export and import being taken from

» This seems incredible, and compels one to suppose that ;^ is a mis-
print for $.

2 See Appendix B.

396 Korea and Her Neighbors

H.B.M.'s. Consul- General's Report for 1896, presented to
Parliament July, 1897.^ With reference to the shipping re-
turns, it must be observed that the British flag is practically
unrepresented in Korean waters, even a chartered British
steamer being rarely seen. The monopoly of the carrying
trade which Japan has enjoyed has only lately been broken
into by the establishment of a Russian subsidized line as a
competitor.

In addition to the trade of the three ports open to Foreign
Trade in 1896, to which the returns given refer exclusively,
there is that carried on by the non-treaty ports, and on the
Chinese and Russian frontiers.

In concluding this brief notice of the Foreign Trade of
Korea, I may remark that Japanese competition, so far as it
consists in the ability to undersell us owing to cheaper labor,
is likely to diminish year by year, as the conditions under
which goods can be manufactured gradually approximate to
those which exist in England ; the rapidly increasing price of
the necessaries of life in Japan, the demand for more than "a
living wage," and an appreciation of the advantages of combi-
nation all tending in this direction.

On the subject of Finance there is little to be said. The
principal items of revenue are a land tax of six dollars on a
fertile kyel, and five dollars on a mountain kyel, a house tax of
60 cents annually, from which houses in the capital are ex-
empt, the ginseng tax, and the gold dues, making up a budget
of about 4,000,000 dollars, a sum amply sufficient for the le-
gitimate expenditure of the country. The land tax is ex-
tremely light. Only about a third of the revenue actually
collected reaches the National Treasury, partly owing to the
infinite corruption of the officials through whose hands it
passes, and partly because provincial income and expenditure
are to a certain extent left to local management. If the Gov-
ernment is in earnest in the all important matter of educating
' See Appendix C.

Education and Foreign Trade 397

the people, the increased expenditure can readily be met by-
imposing taxation on such articles of luxury as wine and to-
bacco, which are enormously consumed, Seoul alone possess-
ing 475 wine shops and 1,100 tobacco shops. But even with-
out resorting to any new source of revenue, with strict super-
vision and regular accounts the income of the Central Govern-
ment is capable of considerable expansion.

In spite of the awful official corruption which has been
revealed, and the chaos which up to 1896 prevailed in the
Treasury, the Korean financial outlook is a hopeful one. At
the close of 1895 the King persuaded Mr. M'Leavy Brown,
LL.D., the Chief Commissioner of Customs, to undertake the
thankless office of Adviser to the Treasury, confirming his
position some months later by the issue of an edict making his
signature essential to all orders for payments out of the national
purse. Korean imagination and ingenuity are chiefly fertile in
devising tricks and devices for getting hold of public money,
and anything more hydra-headed than the dishonesty of
Korean official life cannot be found, so that it is not surprising
that as soon as the foreign adviser blocks one nefarious pro-
ceeding another is sprung upon him, and that the army of use-
less drones, deprived of their "vested interests" by the ju-
dicious retrenchments which have been made, as well as thou-
sands who are trembling for their ill-gotten gains, should oppose
financial reform by every device of Oriental ingenuity.

However, race, as represented by the honor and capacity of
one European, is carrying the day, and Korean Finance is
gradually being placed on a sound basis. With careful man-
agement, judicious retrenchments of expenditure, the reduc-
tion of the chaos in the Treasury to an orderly system of ac-
counts, and a different method of collecting the land tax, which
is now being remitted with tolerable regularity to the Treasury,
an actual financial equilibrium was established and maintained
during the year 1896, which closed with a considerable sur-
plus, and in April, 1897, one million dollars of the Japanese

398 Korea and Her Neighbors

loan of three millions was repaid to Japan, and there is every
prospect that the remaining indebtedness might be paid off out
of income in 1899, leaving Korea in the proud position of a
country without a national debt, and with a surplus of income
over expenditure !

The prosperous financial conclusion of 1896 is all the more
remarkable because of certain exceptional expenditures. Two
new regiments were added to the army, the old Arsenal, a dis-
used costly toy, was put into working order, with all neces-
sary modern improvements, under the supervision of a Russian
machinist, the Kyeng-wun Palace was built, costly ceremonies
and works connected with the late Queen's prospective funeral
were paid for, and a considerable area of western Seoul was
recreated. All civil Government employes (and they are le-
gion), as well as soldiers and police, are paid regularly every
month, and sinecures are very slowly disappearing.

A Korean silver, copper, and brass coinage, convenient as
well as ornamental, is coming into general circulation, and as
it gradually displaces cash, is setting trade free from at least
one of the conditions which hampered it, and increased bank-
ing facilities are tending in the same direction.

CHAPTER XXXIV

D^MONISM OR SHAMANISM

KOREAN cities without priests or temples ; houses with-
out " god shelves " ; village festivals without a inikoshi
or idols carried in festive procession ; marriage and burial
without priestly blessing ; an absence of religious ceremonials
and sacred books to which real or assumed reverence is paid,
and nothing to show that religion has any hold on the popular
mind, constitute a singular Korean characteristic.

Putting aside Buddhism with its gross superstitions, prac-
tised chiefly in remote places, and the magisterial homage be-
fore the Confucian tablets to the memory of the Great Teacher,
the popular cult — I dare not call it a religion — consists of a
number of observances dictated by the dread of bodiless
beings created by Korean fancy, and representing chiefly the
mysterious forces of nature. It may be assumed, taking tradi-
tion for a guide, as certain of the litanies used in exorcism
and invocation were introduced along with Buddhism from
China, that Korean imagination has grafted its own fancies on
those which are of foreign origin, and which are of by no
means distant kinship to those of the Shamanism of northern
Asia.

The external evidences of this cult are chiefly heaps of stones
on the tops of passes, rude shrines here and there containing
tawdry pictures of mythical beings, with the name in Chinese
characters below, strings from which depend small bags of
rice, worn-out straw shoes, strips of dirty rags, and, though
rarely, rusty locks of black hair. Outside of many villages
are high posts (not to be confounded with the distance posts)

399

400 Korea and Her Neighbors

with their tops rudely carved into heads and faces half human,
half daemonic, from which straw ropes, with dependent straw
tassels, recalling the Shintoism of Japan, are stretched across
the road. There are large or distorted trees also, on which
rags, ricebags, and old shoes are hung, and under which are
heaps of stones at which it is usual for travellers to bow and
expectorate. On the ridge poles of royal buildings and city
gates, there are rows of grotesque bronze or china figures for
the purpose of driving away evil demons, and at crossroads
a log of wood perforated like a mouse-trap, and with one hole
bunged up, over which travellers step carefully, may some-
times be seen. In cities the beating of drums accompanied
by the clashing of cymbals vies with the laundry sticks in
breaking the otherwise profound stillness of night, and in
travelling through the country, the mu-tang or sorceress is con-
stantly to be seen going through various musical and dancing
performances in the midst of a crowd in front of a house where
there is sickness,

I have referred to these things in earlier chapters, but the
subject is such an important one, and the influence on Korean
life of the belief in daemons is so strong and injurious, that I
feel justified in laying before my readers at some length such
details of D(Bmonism as have hitherto been ascertained. There
is an unwillingness to speak to foreigners on this topic, and
inquirers may have been purposely misled, but enough has
been gained to make it likely that further inquiry will be pro-
ductive of very valuable results.^ The superstitions already
mentioned, however trivial in themselves, point to that which
underlies all religion, the belief in something outside ourselves
which is higher or more powerful than ourselves.

» I desire again to express my indebtedness to the Rev, G, Heber Jones,
of Chemulpo, for the loan of, and the liberty to use, his very careful and
painstaking notes on the subject of Korean d^monism, and also to a paper
on 77/1? Exorcism of Spirits in Korea, by Dr. Landis of Chemulpo.
Apart from the researches of these two Korean scholars, the results of my
own inquiry and observation would scarcely have been worth publishing.

Dsemonism or Shamanism 401

It is indeed asserted by many of the so-called educated class
that the only cult in Korea is ancestor worship, and they pro-
fess to ridicule the rags, cairns, shrines, and the other para-
phernalia of daemon-worship, as the superstition of women and
coolies, and it is probable that in Seoul, at least, few men of
the upper class are believers, or patronize the rites otherwise
than as unmeaning customs which it would be impolitic to dis-
continue, but it is safe to